Washington Medicine Stewardship Activities

Washington state medicine stewardship passed into law

On March 22, 2018, Governor Inslee signed into law HB 1047, protecting the public's health by creating a system for safe and secure collection and disposal of unwanted medications (aka the Secure Drug Take-Back Act). This is the first such statewide product stewardship law for medicine, as well as Washington state's 4th product stewardship law (the other three are E-Cycle Washington (electronics), LightRecycle Washington (mercury-containing lights), and solar stewardship). The law requires medicine manufacturers to create, fund, and operate a convenient statewide collection and disposal program for unused medicines.

Secure medicine return drop off kiosks are available in King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties and are expanding statewide in 2019-2020 under the manufacturer funded and Department of Health overseen Safe Medication Return / MED-Project stewardship program. Read the NWPSC's Secure Drug Take-Back (PDF) fact sheet.

Secure Medicine Return laws

The following counties in Washington passed ordinances (and the year they passed) requiring manufacturer-funded and operated secure medicine return programs for the convenient collection and safe disposal of unused medicines:

The NWPSC Medicines Committee tracks programs and policies that support the creation of secure, statewide medicine return programs for unwanted medicines from households that are financed by pharmaceutical manufacturers, and that do not rely on state and local government funding. The NWPSC created a sample resolution in support of medicine stewardship (PDF).