Drug Take-Back Continues: Lake County Opiate Task Force Installs Drug Drop-Off Bins

Posted on by Lenore Collins

On Saturday, April 28, he U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Take-Back Initiative collected more than 276 tons of medications.

While such periodic collections address the dangers of discarded medications, our unwanted, old, and expired prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs continue to be an ongoing, everyday problem.

  • If the drugs are in your home, they pose a hazard to children and pets.
  • If you flush them, they contaminate the local water supply and give your neighbors unsuspected doses of narcotics, hormones, antibiotics, and steroids.
  • If you toss them into the trash, they may end up in the hands of scavengers who will resell them.
  • If they make it to the landfill, they become toxic waste that contaminates groundwater.

Now, however, rather than waiting for the next National Take-Back Day, local residents have a much better option: they can take their unwanted, unusable drugs to one of the seven Lake County Opiate Task Force drug disposal drop-off bins.

The bins are at these locations (click here for map):

Lake County Opiate Task Force Drug Disposal Drop-Off Bins

Lake County Opiate Task Force Drug Disposal Drop-Off Bins

  • Lake County Sheriff’s Office, 104 East Erie Street, Painesville
  • Eastlake Police Department, 35150 Lakeshore Boulevard, Eastlake
  • Mentor Police Department, 8500 Civic Center Boulevard, Mentor
  • Willoughby Police Department, 36700 Euclid Avenue
  • Willoughby Hills Police Department, 35405 Chardon Road, Willoughby Hills
  • Madison Township Police Department, 2065 Hubbard Road, Madison
  • Lakeland Community College Police Department, 7700 Clocktower Drive, Building A, lower level, Kirtland

Operating hours for all locations are:

  • Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.
  • Saturday, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
  • Sunday, 1:00–5:00 p.m.

The drop-off locations will accept:

  • prescriptions
  • cold/flu medications
  • pain relievers
  • pet medications
  • vitamins
  • creams
  • cough syrups
  • pills
  • prescription painkillers

Needles and syringes are not accepted.

Leave the medicines in their original package or container, and be sure to black out all personal information on prescription labels before discarding the containers.

The Task Force is also distributing refrigerator magnets that contain this information. The magnets are available without charge at local pharmacies and social service agencies and will be distributed at community events.

Lake County Opiate Task Force Refrigerator Magnet

Lake County Opiate Task Force Refrigerator Magnet

The Lake County Narcotics Agency will destroy the collected drugs.

Unused drugs are hazardous waste: keep them out of the wrong hands … keep them out of our water … keep them out of the landfill.

Shop Recycled: Furniture, Artwork, and More at The Gathering Place Warehouse Sale, May 18–20

Posted on by Lenore Collins

Shoppers with an eye for a bargain and a taste for style can indulge themselves at The Gathering Place Warehouse Sale, Friday through Sunday, May 18–20, 2012.

The sale offers a treasure trove of tenderly treated custom furniture, household goods, artwork, even costume jewelry, all at great prices.

  • Where: The Gathering Place Warehouse, 4911 Commerce Parkway, Warrensville Heights (off Miles Road, east of Richmond Road) (map) (Please note that this is at the warehouse, not The Gathering Place itself.)
  • When:
    Friday, May 18, 9 a.m.–3 p.m.
    Saturday, May 19, 9 a.m.–3 p.m.
    Sunday, May 20, 11 a.m.–2 p.m.
  •  What: fine furniture, unique artwork, soft sculptures, antiques, costume jewelry, tasteful home accessories — select items 50% off
  • Terms: cash and credit cards only
The Gathering Place

The Gathering Place: a caring community for those touched by cancer

For more information and a slideshow of the merchandise, see my examiner.com article: Shop recycled: The Gathering Place Warehouse Sale, May 18–20.

Proceeds from sales help fund the work of The Gathering Place: free programs to support, educate, and empower individuals and families touched by cancer.

Keep Yard Waste Out of the Landfill

Posted on by Lenore Collins

On the second Saturday of every month between April and October 2012, Mentor Recycled Landscape Materials will accept yard waste (natural products only: brush, logs, limbs, leaves, clippings, tree stumps) in paper bags (no plastic) or by the truckload. The organic materials will be reclaimed and recycled into the company’s all-natural compost mulch product, Mentor Pride Mulch.

Mentor Recycled Landscape Materials, part of Mentor’s JTO, Inc., is located in Mentor at 6011 Heisley Road (map). The facility is open to the public from 7:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. on these dates:

  • Saturday, May 12
  • Saturday, June 9Bagging Yard Waste
  • Saturday, July 14
  • Saturday, August 11
  • Saturday, September 8
  • Saturday, October 13

Dispose of your yard waste, do it for free, and keep it out of the landfill.

Identity Protection Through Composting

Posted on by Lenore Collins

If you attend one of the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District’s excellent Backyard Composting Seminars (2012 schedule), you ‘ll hear about a great way to destroy sensitive documents and protect your identity: shred the documents and put them into the compost pile.

compost

Once it looks like this, it's safe from identity theft.

Every backyard compost pile (or compost container) needs a proper balance of green and brown organic matter. A good ratio is 30% green (nitrogen-containing material: vegetables, fruits, flowers, coffee grounds, grass clippings, etc.) to 70% brown (carbon-based material: straw, wood chips, shredded paper, corn stalks, nut shells, etc.).

Once you shred your cancelled checks, credit card statements, and other sensitive documents, just add them to that lovely compost container in the back yard and let them decompose with the rest of your organic discards. Who’ll want to touch them after that?

And if you want to really discourage people from rooting through the pile, add some fresh horse manure. It’s available free to Cuyahoga County residents from the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds horse barns. For more information, check the Composting page on the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District website.

More protection against identity theft: Carver Financial Services offers free shredding on Saturday, May 5

Posted on by Lenore Collins

Did you miss the Mentor Public Library’s April 14 Community Paper Shred Day?

Not to worry: Carver Financial Services of Mentor has teamed up with Northcoast Shredding Services to help you get rid of those vulnerable, sensitive, confidential documents — the cancelled checks, health information, credit card statements and other records that are so attractive to the wrong people.

Documents after shredding

Shredded documents will be sent to a paper mill and recycled. (Photo credit: Northcoast Recycling)

On Saturday, May 5, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., you can take up to three boxes of paper documents to Carver Financial Services at 7473 Center Street (map) in Mentor, where Mentor High School volunteers will help unload them from your vehicle. (Please, no binders, large metal clips, magazines, or newspapers.)

Northcoast Shredding Serviceswill have a mobile shredding unit on-site. Once they have shredded your documents, the shreds will be sent to a paper mill and properly recycled.

The shredding service is free, but Carver Financial Services will be accepting donations of non-perishable food items for the Lake County Salvation Army. For more information, see the Carver Financial Services website.

Protect your identity: keep it safe, and Keep It Out of the Landfill.

National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, Saturday, April 28: get rid of expired drugs — safely, no questions asked

Posted on by Lenore Collins
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration logo

Be safe: take your discarded drugs to a National Take-Back Initiative collection site.
Photo credit: U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

On Saturday, April 28, Cleveland-area governments are offering their communities a safe, convenient way to get rid of unwanted and expired prescription drugs. Local residents can take their leftover pills, liquids, syringes, inhalers and other medicines to a nearby collection site, where they will be accepted and disposed of, no questions asked.

Prescription drugs are an especially dangerous type of hazardous waste. They’re difficult to dispose of and dangerous to keep around the house.

  • If discovered by children and pets, they can be poisonous, and the results can be fatal.
  • If flushed into the sewer system, they contaminate the water supply, giving your neighbors unsuspected doses of narcotics, hormones, antibiotics and steroids.
  • If tossed into the trash, they may end up in the hands of scavengers who will resell them, or they will end up in the landfill as toxic waste that contaminates groundwater.

In cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Agency’s National Take Back Initiative (NTBI), local communities have established collection sites throughout the region. (The DEA continues to add collection sites, so if you don’t find a convenient site in the lists that follow, check the NTBI search page.)

To view a map of a collection site, click on the site’s address.

Ashtabula County

Cuyahoga County/Cleveland East Side

Cuyahoga County/Cleveland West Side

Cuyahoga County/Suburban

Geauga County

Lake County

For more information about the National Take-Back Initiative, see the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration website. A complete list of collection sites nationwide is available through the NTBI search page.

Unused drugs are hazardous waste: keep them out of the wrong hands … keep them out of our water … keep them out of the landfill.

Protect yourself from identity theft: Community Paper Shred Day, April 14 at Mentor Library

Posted on by Lenore Collins

On Saturday, April 14, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Mentor Public Library invites Mentor residents and library patrons to bring documents to be shredded to the Main Library’s auxiliary parking lot at the corner of Mentor Avenue and Sharonlee Drive (map).

The library is hosting the Community Paper Shred event in partnership with XPress Shredding of Mentor, at no cost to the library or participants. The event will go on no matter the weather: rain or shine, or even snow.

Bring as many as five paper-storage boxes of documents, which will be unloaded from your car (you don’t need to get out of your vehicle) and placed into locked bins and then into a secured truck attended at all times by XPress Shredding staff. The documents will then be taken to XPress Shredding’s facility to be thoroughly destroyed and, finally, recycled.

Protect your identity: keep it safe, and Keep It Out of the Landfill.Paper Shredding

Paper Shopping Bags Become Kitty Playhouses at the Humane Society

Posted on by Lenore Collins
cat guarding house

This is a cat guarding his new house.

The forever-in-the-landfill plastic shopping bag has pretty much displaced the paper bags that carried our grandparents’ groceries home, but some stores still offer paper. So, of course, I have accumulated quite a few (use it up, wear it out …).

Our local humane society wants them! They open the bags and put them into the cat cages, where the kitties turn them into playhouses and hiding places.

Of course — anyone who has lived with a cat knows how that works!

(BTW: this post is tagged “free to a good home.” The bags are free, the cats are not.)

Free Driftwood at Fairport Harbor Lakefront Park

Posted on by Lenore Collins

During the Lake Metroparks spring cleanup of Fairport Harbor Lakefront Park, the public is welcome to collect and take home any of the driftwood that has washed ashore over the winter. (Be aware that Lake Metroparks prohibits vehicles and chainsaws on the beach.)

The park is located at 301 Huntington Beach Drive. (Click here for map.)

Keep the driftwood out of the landfill: Lake Metroparks gets it!

(Need some ideas for using driftwood? Try the creative website BetweenTheShores and eHow’s Ideas for Driftwood.)

Vitamin Shoppe in Mentor: They Get It

Posted on by Lenore Collins

Lately when I’ve made a purchase at the Vitamin Shoppe in Mentor, the cashier has asked me whether I want a bag for the product.

I have yet to say yes.

Even though I routinely use durable woven shopping bags, they don’t always make it out of the car with me, and while I try to remember to ask that a purchase not be bagged, I do forget. So, like most of us, I have a never-ending, and growing, supply of wastebasket liners.

That’s why I’m grateful to the Vitamin Shoppe for giving me a choice.

The last time this happened, I asked the cashier whether this was a Vitamin Shoppe policy. It’s not a company-wide policy, he told me, but something the store’s staff have been doing on their own. And about half their customers do turn down the offer of a bag.

That’s a lot of plastic that’s not going into the landfill.

Way to go, Vitamin Shoppe!