As Earth Day approaches, the Iowa Pharmacy Association (IPA) is encouraging state residents to take advantage of an environmentally friendly way to clear their medicine cabinets of unused medications.

Through the TakeAway program, Iowans can drop off unused prescription medications at participating neighborhood pharmacies for safe disposal. Initially funded by the Legislature in 2009, the program is aimed at curbing prescription drug abuse by teens, and provides an alternative to flushing medications down the drain, a practice with serious implications for the state’s water quality.

The program’s future is uncertain, however. The association is lobbying the Legislature to continue funding TakeAway, which costs $150,000 per year to operate. More than 400 pharmacies – more than 50 percent of the retail pharmacies in Iowa – participate in TakeAway, which the IPA said has collected more than 15,000 pounds of unused medicines in the past two years. In Greater Des Moines, Dahls Foods Inc., Hy-Vee Inc., Medicap Pharmacies Inc. and Walgreen Co. are among the major chains participating, plus a number of independent pharmacies.

“We’re really trying to get the word out, because we feel a lot of Iowans don’t know this program exists,” said Kate Gainer, the IPA’s vice president of professional affairs. Whether the program will receive continued funding is “anybody’s guess” at this point, she said. The current funding for the program expires June 30.

If no further state funding is received, pharmacies may opt to continue the program, Gainer said, but they may begin charging consumers to drop off medicines to cover their costs.

Once filled, the TakeAway containers at the pharmacies are sealed and shipped to a medication disposal facility in Texas, where the entire container and its contents are incinerated. In addition, the incineration facility used by the TakeAway program employs a waste-to-energy incineration process that produces electricity.

For more information about the program, including a list of accepted medications and participating locations, visit www.iarx.org/takeaway.