About 75 percent of Delaware County households will be receiving a free gift from the Delaware County Health Department, writes Kathleen E. Carey for the Daily Times.

About 165,289 households will receive drug disposal pouches that will allow them to dispose of expired medications in their home.

It’s an effort to bring the opioid addiction epidemic under control, and it’s being paid for with $1 million with opioid settlement money from pharmaceuticals.

The drug disposal pouches come from Verde Environmental Technologies Inc. The technical name for the pouches is the Deterra Drug Deactivation and Disposal System.

The pouches should go out by the end of the year. They will target areas with known high incidences of opioid usage.  The 25 percent of the county will receive the pouches in future mailings.

Mix any expired medications or ones no longer in use in the pouch with water, shake them, seal them, and dispose of them. Shaking it with water makes the medication inactive, according to Health Department Director Melissa Lyon.

Those who can’t use the pouches should give them to someone who can.

“It’s encouraged not to get rid of it but to utilize it,” Lyon said.

Find out more details about this effort to reduce unused medications in the Daily Times.