what to do with old pills?

So, I found a bottle of expired prescription strength Ibuprofen in our med cabinet. I was about to throw it in the trash absent-mindedly, but luckily came to my senses before I did. What if some dumpster-diving druggie finds it? Or worse, what if the pills spill and some curious animal or child finds them? And there is always the silent danger of the stuff leaking its way into the water table from the land-fill.

The second option is to flush them down the toilet. This again can be a environmental hazard - because, apparently, sewage treatment plants are not designed to filter pharmaceuticals. So the chemicals can slip into lakes, rivers or the ocean, or end up in the sludge used as landfill covers or fertilizer. Even worse, they can find their way back into water supply - as has been rather sensationally reported several times recently.

So, what is a good citizen to do?

These are the options:

1. drop them off at a local hazardous waste handling facility
   
2. check with your pharmacy if they can take it back (and dispose it off responsibly)
3. find some charity that can (legally) accept (unexpired) meds to redistribute to those who can't afford them
   
4. if none of the above works, you still have the trash or flush options. picking between these two is a toss up. but if you must throw it in garbage, take some measures to protect your own identity and anyone who may get harmed, by:
• scratching off any ID info in the container
• pulverizing the pills, perhaps mixing with something unpleasant like cat litter, packing tightly first in a child-safe container and then in water tight bags perhaps

But I think the best action one can take is avoiding purchasing too many pills which they are unlikely to use.