DISPOSAL OF DOMILICIALY MEDICINES BY THE POPULATION OF COLATINA/ES

Abstract

With easy access to medications and the growth of their consumption in a deliberate
way, the storage of large quantities of drugs at home tends to be large, contributing
to the obsolete expiration of many medications acquired due to some acute affection,
bringing the need for disposal of overdue or no longer needed medicines. However,
when carried out in ordinary waste or sewage they contaminate water and soil and
are practically impossible to dispose of, in common filtration and treatment
processes. Questionnaires were randomly applied in the city of Colatina/ES and the
data were analyzed in order to verify the most common errors regarding the discard
of the drugs and to which characteristics of the population these were associated. It
was verified that 100% of the interviewees had medications at home. There was also
a lack of knowledge about the National Solid Waste Policy or any information about
the appropriate forms of drug disposal. 83% of the participants waste it in the
common waste, and more than half never thought of the problems caused by this
form of waste. Regarding environmental responsibility, 25% of respondents claimed
to have never thought about the environmental problems that this practice can
generate. In view of the results presented, it is possible to extract two main
information: the lack of knowledge of the population about the problem caused by
improper disposal of medicines and their high discard rate inappropriately, therefore,
intervention actions are necessary to reverse the situation.