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 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

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.

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: 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.

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 9
• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

• Ashtabula County sites
• Cuyahoga County sites (Cleveland east side)
• Cuyahoga County sites (Cleveland west side)
• Cuyahoga County sites (suburban)
• Geauga County sites
• Lake County sites

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

Ashtabula County

• Conneaut: University Hospital Conneaut Medical Center, 158 W. Main Road
• Geneva: University Hospital Geneva Medical Center, 870 W. Main Street
• Jefferson: Jefferson Emergency Rescue District, 11 South Market Street

Cuyahoga County/Cleveland East Side

• Euclid Hospital, 18901 Lake Shore Boulevard
• Cleveland Division of Police, 3rd District, 10700 Chester Avenue
• Cleveland Division of Police, 4th District, 9333 Kinsman Road
• Cleveland Division of Police, 5th District, 881 East 152nd Street

Cuyahoga County/Cleveland West Side

• Lutheran Hospital, 730 West 25th Street
• Cleveland Division of Police, 2nd District, 3841 Fulton Road
• Cleveland Division of Police, 1st district, 3895 West 130th Street
• Discount Drug Mart (parking lot), 17815 Puritas Road
• Cuyahoga County Board of Health, 5550 Venture Drive

Cuyahoga County/Suburban

• Bay Village: Bay Village Police Department, 28000 Wolf Road
• Beachwood: Beachwood Fire Department, 2655 Richmond Road
• Bedford: University Hospital Bedford Medical Center, 44 Blaine Avenue
• Brecksville: Public Square, corner of Route 21 (Brecksville Road) and Route 82 (Royalton Road)
• Brook Park: North Park Retirement Community, 14801 Holland Road
• Cuyahoga Heights: NE Ohio Regional Sewer District Environmental & Maintenance Servics Center, 4747 East 49th Street
• Fairview Park: Fairview Park Police Department, 20777 Lorain Road
• Garfield Heights: Marymount Hospital, 2300 McCracken Road
• Gates Mills: Gates Mills Police Department, 1470 Chagrin River Road
• Highland Heights: Highland Heights Police Department, 5827 Highland Road
• Independence: Independence Police Department, 6800 Brecksville Road
• Lakewood: Lakewood Hospital, 14519 Detroit Avenue
• Lakewood: Lakewood Police Department, 12650 Detroit Avenue
• Maple Heights: Discount Drug Mart (parking lot), 6148 Dunham Road
• Mayfield Heights: Mayfield Heights Police Department, 6154 Mayfield Road
• Mayfield Village: Mayfield Village Police Department, 620 SOM Center Road
• Middleburg Heights: Sanford Brown College, 17535 Rosbough Drive
• Newburgh Heights: Washington Park Horticultural School/Center (parking lot), 3875 Washington Park Boulevard
• North Olmsted: North Olmsted Police Department, 27243 Lorain Road
• North Royalton: Discount Drug Mart (parking lot), 5500 Wallings Road
• Olmsted Falls: Olmsted Falls Police Department, 26100 Bagley Road
• Orange Village: Orange Village Police Department, 4600 Lander Road
• Parma: Parma Senior Center, 7001 West Ridgewood Avenue
• Pepper Pike: Pepper Pike Police Department, 28000 Shaker Boulevard
• Rocky River: Rocky River Police Department, 21012 Hilliard Boulevard
• Solon: Solon Senior Centr, 35000 Portz Parkway
• Strongsville: Discount Drug Mart (parking lot), 13919 Prospect Road
• Strongsville: Strongsville Police Department, 18688 Royalton Road
• Westlake: Westlake Police Department, 273 Hilliard Boulevard

Geauga County

• Chardon: Geauga County Sheriff’s Office (parking lot), 12450 Merritt Road

Lake County

• Willoughby Hills: Willoughby Hills Fire Department, 35405 Chardon Road
• Willowick: Willowick Police Department, 30435 Lake Shore Boulevard

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.

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.

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.)

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.)

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!