Sunrise Rotary gifts Grosse Pointe Woods with new drug disposal device

GROSSE POINTE WOODS — Residents of Grosse Pointe Woods and other nearby cities now have a new, safe and environmentally friendly way to dispose of their unwanted medications.

Because of a gift from Rotary Club of Grosse Pointe Sunrise, a medicine safe disposal kiosk with a bottle that destroys drugs — liquids and pills alike — is available around the clock for public use in the lobby of the Grosse Pointe Woods Public Safety Department, 20025 Mack Plaza Drive. The device works by using a solution of activated charcoal to “bind and chemically digest the medication, rendering it unfit for human consumption,” according to a press release.

“Thanks to Rotary for this,” Woods Mayor Arthur Bryant said during a press conference Jan. 25 in the Woods Community Center. “We accept this in our city as a move forward.”

Larry Kenemore is the North America chapter leader of Project SMART, which was developed for local Rotary clubs by the Rotary Action Group for Addiction Prevention. He said the Woods is the first city in Michigan to get one of these medicine safe disposal kiosks. Grosse Pointe Sunrise is a Project SMART Rotary Club.

Unlike drug drop-off bins — where people deposit their medicine, bottles and all — this device immediately ruins the medication.

Each bottle with the charcoal solution holds roughly 12,000 to 16,000 pills, Woods Public Safety Director John Kosanke said. It wasn’t known how quickly the Woods bottle would get filled. The city will always have an empty bottle on hand to replace the filled bottle, which gets sent to a facility in Arkansas that collects and incinerates these containers.

Even expired over-the-counter medications and vitamins can be dumped into the bottle, Kosanke said.

As Rotary officials noted, one of the advantages of this kiosk is that it prevents medication from getting into the local water system, either by being flushed down the toilet or thrown in the trash. Studies have shown that trace amounts of legal and illegal drugs — including cocaine and antibiotics — have been found in waterways such as the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair.

Like several other local cities, the Woods has had a metal drop-off bin for medicine in its public safety lobby. However, Kosanke said there are safety and liability issues to consider with this bin. Although people are asked not to toss needles in there, Kosanke said they’ve found syringes before; in at least one case, a detective charged with emptying the bin was nearly stabbed by a discarded needle. Liquid medications have leaked as well, he said, since people would throw the whole bottle of liquid or pills into the bin.

“That was a health risk for my employees,” Kosanke said.

And, because the drugs collected in the bin were still whole, they needed to be securely stored in a locked area in the department until they could be collected by a local health care system for disposal, Kosanke said.

The kiosk will replace the bin and be safer and less labor-intensive for his staff.

In June 2023, Kosanke said, the Woods experienced a triple opioid overdose in one night. It was the city’s second multi-opioid overdose incident in three years. After the overdoses in June, Kosanke said Sunrise Rotary Club Administrator Dennis Hyduk reached out to him and the city started working with Rotary to acquire the kiosk.

“We all know what a problem drug addiction is,” said Steve Kosinski, a past president of Grosse Pointe Sunrise. “It’s palpable and it’s very serious.”

Rotary officials said that for many, addiction starts with someone — often a teen or pre-teen — experimenting with the medicine found in their parent’s or grandparent’s medicine cabinet. That’s why destroying these drugs is considered so crucial to preventing addiction in the first place.

Sherrie Jones, president of Grosse Pointe Sunrise, said any community that wants one of these kiosks should reach out to the club, which meets at 7 a.m. every Tuesday at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores.

“Sunrise Rotary is happy to be in partnership to make these kiosks available,” Jones said.

Kosanke asks that anyone who wants to use the kiosk plan ahead by putting their pills into a bag first so that they can dump all of them into the tube at once. He said kiosk users should take any bags or empty medicine bottles home with them.

“Nobody is taking anybody’s medication back,” Kenemore clarified. “The people are destroying their own. We’re not touching anybody’s drugs.”

Kevin Walker, of Stat Medicament Disposal Corp. — the company that created the kiosk — said this device has been in the works since 2010. Walker said they have an “exclusive contract with Rotary” to sell these devices for use in locations all over the country.

“We want this to continue throughout all of our communities,” Rotary District 6400 Governor Russ Jones said. “Rotary works at the grassroots level. … This is something that affects all of us. It’s both environmental and medical health.”

Kenemore said each kiosk costs $1,295 and the bottle inside the kiosk costs $495.

For now, Kosanke said, Stat Medicament Disposal Corp. will be replacing the Woods’ bottles at no cost. He said the City Council is looking at drafting an ordinance that would force big pharmaceutical companies to pay for the replacement bottles, as well as small bottles that would be mailed out to all Woods residents at no charge so they could safely destroy their medicine at home and send back the filled bottles for disposal. Opioid lawsuit settlements with pharmaceutical manufacturers have led to more than $50 billion going to state and local governments to battle the opioid epidemic, which is where the Woods hopes to obtain its funding for this initiative.

“We’re always looking to improve our existing services and programs for our residents,” Kosanke said. “I’m excited for the program, and I’m so grateful to my city administrator and mayor and council — and especially to Sunrise Rotary — for facilitating this and making it happen.”

The kiosk was installed and made available for medicine disposal Jan. 30.

Kenemore said Rotary clubs around the country are getting these kiosks for public spaces such as government buildings, schools and libraries. He said their goal is to do for the opioid crisis what Rotary did to largely eradicate polio globally, a project that started in 1979 and has now reduced polio cases by 99.9%.

“We are going to make a difference,” Kenemore said.