Out-of-date or unused medicines: what should you do with them?

Clearing out the medicine cabinet takes ten minutes and one trip to the pharmacy.

The answer in 2 lines. Take out-of-date or unwanted medicines and inhalers back to a pharmacy. In England, every community pharmacy must accept unwanted medicines from households. Do not flush them down the toilet or pour them down the sink. Do not put them in the household bin either, where children or animals could find them. Needles and other sharps are different: pharmacies do not have to accept them, so check with your council or the service that prescribed them. If a child or pet swallows a medicine, call 111, or 999 if they are seriously unwell. For a pet, call your vet.

The 3 steps

Gather the medicines that are out of date or that you no longer use: tablets, capsules, liquids, creams, sprays and inhalers.
Put them in a bag, still in their blister packs, tubes or bottles. Keep needles, syringes and lancets separate: they do not go in this bag.
Take the bag to any community pharmacy. You can find one with the NHS Find a pharmacy service by entering your postcode.

Stop: danger

A child or adult has swallowed medicine by accident and is drowsy, struggling to breathe, having a fit or unconscious: call 999. If they seem well, call 111 straight away for advice. Keep the packet to hand.
A pet has eaten medicine: call your vet straight away, even out of hours.

What not to do

Flushing medicines down the toilet or pouring them down the sink.
Putting them in the household bin, where children or animals could get at them.
Giving your leftover prescription medicines to someone else: it is not safe to share prescribed medicines.
Putting needles, syringes or lancets in the bag for the pharmacy: sharps have their own route.

What goes where

Item	Where to take it
Medicines, out of date or not, in their blister pack, tube or bottle	Any community pharmacy
Inhalers, empty or not	Your pharmacy
Needles, syringes, lancets and pen needles used at home	Not a pharmacy duty. Ask the clinic, GP practice or pharmacy that supplies you whether there is a local sharps scheme, or ask your council about a clinical waste collection
Empty cardboard boxes and paper leaflets	Your recycling, following your council's rules
Other items (mercury thermometer, cosmetics, household disinfectants)	Not for the pharmacy: check your council's website

How to use the official tools

NHS Find a pharmacy (nhs.uk): enter a town, city or postcode in England and select Search, or use your location. The results show the pharmacies near you.
GOV.UK Request clinical waste collection: enter your postcode to reach your council. Some councils collect clinical waste such as used syringes from homes, and there may be a charge. This service covers England and Wales.
GOV.UK Find your local council: enter your postcode to find your council's recycling rules for packaging and household hazardous waste.

Next time: less waste

Check your medicine cabinet once a year.
Before reordering a repeat prescription, check what you already have and only ask for what you need this time.
Check your prescription bag before you leave the pharmacy. If something is not needed, hand it back there and then. Once you have taken medicines home, they cannot be reused.
Tell your pharmacy or GP team if you have stopped taking a medicine.
Write the opening date on bottles and tubes: some only keep for a few weeks once opened (the leaflet says how long).

Good to know

Medicines returned to a pharmacy are destroyed safely. They are not given to anyone else.
Pharmacies only have to accept unwanted medicines from households (including care homes), not from businesses.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own pharmacy services. Returning medicines to a pharmacy is the usual advice there too, but local sharps schemes vary.

In Coventry, Grace clears out her father's bathroom cabinet after he moves into a care home. She puts the blister packs, bottles and two inhalers in a bag and recycles the empty boxes. She keeps his used insulin pen needles in their sharps bin and asks his GP practice where to return it. The next day she drops the bag at the pharmacy round the corner.

A made-up story, for illustration.

Bobby

Sources, verification, confidence

Verified on 6 November 2026, for England. Confidence: high for every community pharmacy accepting unwanted household medicines and for sharps being excluded from that service (Community Pharmacy England, page updated 28 October 2026); high for returning inhalers and the advice on not sharing or stockpiling medicines (NHS Surrey and Sussex ICB); medium for sharps, because collection depends on your council and local schemes, and some councils charge. This guide gives general information: ask your pharmacist about any medicine.