Donate your leftover medicine so that they can be distributed for reuse

(For the 22nd of February)

Bacteria, Kamchatka, Russia
Photograph by Philippe Bourseiller

In developing countries, every day 30,000 people die for lack of medicines or the money to buy them, while we throw our unused medicines in the dustbin. But there are humanitarian organizations that collect these unused medications and redistribute them to the poorest people around the world. One organization, Aid for AIDS annually redistributes nearly 2.5 million pounds of medicine to people in developing countries who are HIV-positive or living with AIDS.

Find a charity near you that accepts unused medicine donations. This is also a safer choice for your household, because it will reduce the amount of medicine that could fall into a young child's hands. Forty percent of poisonings involving children are a result of ingesting medicines.

-from the book '365 Ways to Save the Earth', by Philippe Bourseiller