conducting a Safe Meds campaign— MED Rx (Medication Education Disposal and Prescription Bottle Repurposing)—to collect used medicine bottles that will be sent to doctors and pharmacies in Malawi.
Resources in Malawi are so scarce that most doctors just wrap prescription pills in the nearest piece of scrap paper or drop them in the patient’s hand before they send the patient on his/her way. But more than half of Malawians live more than three miles away from the nearest health clinic—a long way to walk with a handful of loose pills, and it is easy for pills to get lost along the way.
“I have always been interested in medicine and health care, which is where the idea for this project stemmed from,” says Berman. “There are many pervasive problems attributed to the disposal of pill bottles as well as the drugs in them, which I feel are not being addressed. Drug abuse is something that affects every community as does the pollution resulting from improper disposal of these bottles. These are key issues that need a solution.”
The empty prescription bottles can be dropped at the following sites through the end of April: Sid Jacobson JCC, 300 Forest Drive, East Hills; Harbor Hill Pharmacy, 310 Glen Cove Road, East Hills; and the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island, 38 Old Country road, Garden City.
Additionally, bottles with unwanted or expired medicine in them can be brought to the Town of North Hempstead’s STOP Program at michael J. Tully Park, 1801 Evergreen Avenue, New Hyde Park, on Saturday, April 9, between 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Says Berman, “Spring cleaning is not just a time for cleaning out houses. Medicine cabinet clean-outs are just as important and commonly forgotten about.”
Berman’s project is funded by a Young Activist Grant from the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island. “This project is significant on many levels,” says Alison Pratt, the grant committee chair. “Lethal meds are kept out of the hands of children and the water system; plastic bottles are kept out of the landfills; and people in Malawi are able to store their meds properly.”
The Young Activist Grant of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island is available to a Nassau County middle school and high school student that wants to create a better world. The $500 grant funds a selected student’s project in areas of peace, humanitarian efforts, the environment, disaster relief or disadvantaged groups.
