BUFFALO, N.Y. - More than 30 million people live around the Great Lakes, and every day an untold number of them flush their unused and expired medications down the toilet.
With trace amounts of all those pharmaceuticals showing up in the largest source of fresh drinking water on the planet, U.S. government officials are trying to get people to dispose of their medicines in a different way.
Consumers around Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and the other Great Lakes are being encouraged by the Environmental Protection Agency to drop off leftover and expired medicine at collection centres to keep them from entering the region's water sources.
The EPA has set a goal of collecting one million pills during an Earth Day initiative.
The agency is helping to pay for more than 70 collection points in New York and seven other states from April 19-27 for old medicine, along with electronic waste like computers, cellphones and televisions.
