Four Out of Ten Gyeonggi Residents Unaware of Expired Medicine Disposal, Throwing Them in Trash Bags

[Suwon Ilbo=Park No-hoon Reporter] A survey has found that four out of ten Gyeonggi residents are unaware of how to dispose of expired medicines, and nearly half of the province's residents are disposing of them through general waste pay-as-you-throw bags or household sewage pipes.

Gyeonggi Province announced on the 24th the results of a public opinion survey on "expired medicine disposal" conducted on 1,000 residents from November 11th to 12th, revealing that 40% answered they "do not know" how to dispose of expired medicines.

By age group, those in their 50s showed the highest rate at 49%, while those in their 30s showed the lowest at 32%.

When asked how they handle expired medicine disposal, "pharmacy submission or pharmacy collection boxes" (34%) and "public facility collection boxes such as health centers" (6%) accounted for 40% of total respondents who properly dispose of them. The remainder includes ▲general waste pay-as-you-throw bags (39%) ▲storage at home without disposal (12%) ▲household sinks, toilets, and sewage pipes (5%).

When expired medicines are buried as general waste or discarded in sewers, they can cause environmental pollution to soil and water quality and may negatively affect ecosystems.

Accordingly, cities and counties are installing expired medicine collection boxes at pharmacies, health centers, administrative welfare centers, and other public facilities, as well as in pharmacies and apartment complexes, so that expired medicines can be collected and incinerated.

According to the current Waste Management Act Enforcement Rules, expired medicines are classified as household hazardous waste along with waste pesticides and mercury-containing waste.

As a reason for poor expired medicine disposal, 84% of respondents cited accessibility issues with collection boxes, saying they have never seen an expired medicine collection box near their residential areas.

To address the problem, 89% of respondents answered that it is necessary for the government or local governments to expand projects to smoothly collect and systematically treat expired medicines.

Furthermore, 71% of respondents empathize with the severity of expired medicine's environmental impact, and 83% expressed willingness to use expired medicine collection boxes even if inconvenient.

This survey was commissioned by Gyeonggi Province to Real Meter, a polling agency, and conducted using an automated response method, with a sampling error of ±3.1%p at a 95% confidence level.