NILES — With an effort to keep prescription drugs from harming people or the environment, Spectrum Health Lakeland will be collecting residents’ unused medications.

The Prescription Take Back event will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 27 at Lakeland Medical Suites, 42 N. St. Joseph Ave. in Niles and at Lakeland Center for Outpatient Services, 3900 Hollywood Road in St. Joseph.

Organizers wanted to make the process simple, so those with medications to get rid of can drive up and drop off the substances, without having to leave their car. Pills will be accepted in their original container or in a plastic bag. Syringes with needles will not be accepted.

With many people beginning the process of spring cleaning their homes, Beverly Robbins, a registered nurse at Spectrum, said hospital officials felt it was an ideal time to host the event.

“Get those medications, especially opioids out of your cabinets, if you’re not using them,” Robbins said. “Opioids can be involved in accidental poisonings and intentional misuse.”

This will be the Niles location’s inaugural drug take back event.

“We wanted to add a south county location,” Robbins said. “We are adding the Niles medical office practice because we want to have the ability to make sure that everyone who lives in the south county would be able to bring their medications back also.”

Robbins said the event serves as an important way to keep prescription drugs out of the wrong hands.

“The United States, in general, is experiencing an epidemic with prescription drug misuse and abuse,” Robbins said.

A study reported in Michigan-open.org stated that every 10 minutes a child visits the emergency room for medication poisoning. Additionally, the source cited that 12.5 million people 12 and older misused medications in the past year and that every day, 115 Americans die each day from an opioid-related overdose.

Robbins also cautioned residents not to attempt to dispose of the drugs themselves by flushing them down the toilet, which can lead to water contamination.

Cleaning out the medicine cabinet can help to assure that children and pets do not have access to the drugs. While Robbins said she does not know of any incidents in Berrien County, she said some homes are broken into so that thieves can steal from medicine cabinets.

During a take-back event in the fall 2018, Lakeland’s St. Joseph location was among 60 organizations across the state to take part in the event. Through the take-back, 3,000 pounds of drugs, including 40,000 opioid pills, were collected.

Robbins said the hospital works in cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration to incinerate the drugs after they are collected.

Robbins asked residents to take advantage of the opportunity to clean out their medicine cabinets and safely dispose of drugs in their possession.

“It’s a really simple way to just look through everything [in your cabinets] and drop it off,” Robbins said.