Staten Island Prescription Drug Safety & Disposal

Many prescription drugs in your medicine cabinet are harmful.

Rates of unintentional overdose and accidental poisoning in New York City are alarmingly high. In fact, many individuals using heroin report starting with a prescription opioid.

There are several ways to protect your family and friends, including safely disposing or properly destroying your medications. Learn more below.

Staten Island Drug Disposal Locations

Type in your address in the top right corner of the map to find the drug drop box location nearest to you.

On Staten Island, select pharmacies, hospitals, and all NYPD precincts have drug drop boxes where you can dispose of old, unused, and unwanted medications.

TYSA is working with Richmond County District Attorney Michael McMahon and other community partners to expand take back locations to even more pharmacies and locations across Staten Island. Sponsored by DA Michael McMahon, MedSafe drug disposal safes have been installed in the following pharmacies:

Delco Drugs and Specialty Pharmacy – 3833 Richmond Avenue (Eltingville)
Randall Manor Pharmacy – 395 Forest Avenue (Randall Manor)
Ocean Breeze Pharmacy – 1817 Hylan Boulevard (Dongan Hills)
Super Health Pharmacy – 6400 Amboy Road (Pleasant Plains)
St. George Pharmacy – 99 Stuyvesant Place (St. George)
Rosebank Pharmacy – 500 Rosebank Avenue (Rosebank)
Living Well Pharmacy – 3555 Victory Boulevard (Bulls Head/Travis)
CVS Pharmacy – 640 Arthur Kill Road (Great Kills), 1933 Victory Boulevard (Westerleigh), 1361 Hylan Boulevard (Old Town)
Walgreens Pharmacy – 758 Arthur Kill Road (Arden Heights), 1551 Richmond Avenue (Bulls Head)

Additionally, you can bring your medications to the following NYPD precincts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no questions asked:

120 Precinct – 78 Richmond Terrace (St. George)
121 Precinct – 970 Richmond Avenue (Granitevlle)
122 Precinct – 1210 Hylan Boulevard (New Dorp)
123 Precinct – 116 Main Street (Tottenville)

And the following hospital locations:

Northwell Health (Staten Island University Hospital)

SIUH North – 475 Seaview Ave (Dongan Hills/Ocean Breeze)
SIUH South – 375 Seguine Ave (Prince’s Bay)

Richmond University Medical Center – 355 Bard Avenue (West New Brighton)

Personal Disposal Kits at Home

If you cannot make your way to one of these locations, you can safely dispose of unused, unwanted, and expired medications at home too. Personal drug disposal kits, such as the ones made by Deterra, can be used with water to de-activate drugs, rendering them harmless. These kits are biodegradable and can simply be disposed of with your regular trash. (You can get Deterra kits for your personal use at the next TYSA tabling event.)

Verde Technologies: Drug Deactivation Pouches From: Deterra Drug Deactivation System | Healthcare Packaging

Alternatively, you can also mix your pills with coffee grounds, cat litter, sawdust, and/or soil to discourage others from getting into these drugs by accident. This is not quite as effective as Deterra kits in de-activating the drugs, but it should effectively discourage others from getting into the drugs. You can also dispose of this along with your regular trash as well.

Drug Disposal Dos and Don’ts

If you do decide to dispose of your medication, follow these simple rules:

DON’T flush medications in the toilet
DON’T throw medications directly in the trash
DO use drug deactivation pouches
DO damage medications by mixing drugs with coffee grinds or cat litter

For more information, download the Partnership for Drug Free Kids Safe Drug Disposal Guide.

About TYSA

The TYSA coalition is a data-driven collaboration aimed at leveraging the power of collective impact to improve behavioral health outcomes for Staten Island’s youth. Through the lens of equity and inclusion, this project seeks to drive major improvements in youth substance use and mental health prevention, treatment, and recovery on Staten Island. TYSA seeks to:

Engage diverse communities and constituencies, inclusive of lived experience, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability status and all of the other rich diversity on Staten Island
Achieve major gains, not minor improvements
Use clear metrics, at the youth, organization, and system-levels
Support the success of partner implementers
Align and improve efforts to achieve greater collective impact
Avoid reinventing the wheel or duplicating existing existing programs
Identify and address disparities
Identify root causes such as adverse childhood experiences, and support community level change
Create a culture of equity in systems and partnerships

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Mission & Vision

SIPCW seeks to create a healthier Staten Island by bringing together partner organizations and community members to address pressing wellness needs and give all Staten Islanders a chance to live their best lives. The focus of our efforts is in communities and populations with the greatest health inequities such as BIPOC and LGBTQ+ identifying.

Our vision is that our entire community has a shared understanding of the systemic conditions such as racism, classism, and heterosexism, contributing to wellness and the resources to ensure that all individuals and families have the knowledge and access to what they need to live their healthiest lives.

Recognizing the Indigenous History of SI

The Staten Island Partnership for Community Wellness is located on Munsee Lenape land. Native communities called present-day Staten Island Aquehonga Manacknong. The Lenape sold the land we now call Staten Island to European colonizers under duress in 1670. To learn more about this transaction, see Andrew Lipman’s article, “A Hard Bargain.” Today, roughly 300 Ramapough Lunaape tribal members live on Staten Island.

To learn more about land acknowledgement and the Indigenous lands where you reside, view this map of Native lands or text your zip code to 1-855-917-5263