Anna McCartney Marti Martz Pennsylvania Sea Grant

What is Sea Grant? The National Sea Grant College Program includes 32 state Sea Grant programs located in every coastal and Great Lakes state and Puerto Rico. Administered by NOAA, Sea Grant focuses on environmental and economic issues in coastal communities. Focus Areas: Sustainable coastal development Healthy coastal ecosystems Safe and sustainable sea food supply Hazard resilient coastal communities

Undo the Great Lakes Chemical Brew: Proper PPCP Disposal Education and Outreach - six main audiences Goal: reach 1 MILLION PEOPLE around the Great Lakes basin in TWO years. graphic courtesy of Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District How is this possible??

Successful partnerships Sea Grant partners IISG, NY, OH, PA Medical communities Educators and students Erie Times-News in Education General public Policymakers

Education and Outreach Newspaper inserts Billboards Teacher Workshops and Presentations Factsheets and posters

The Domino Effect 630,000 so far Partnerships exponentially increase number of people reached

Collection events Law enforcement, school of pharmacy, PA representative Hornaman

University of Maine Mail back Add picture of mailback envelope

Medical community partners LECOM UPMC Hamot AVMA Health Department

Medical community partners LECOM Collection events Data Collection Pharmacy curriculum and student rotation “This is a great way for students to actively learn more about medications, patient adherence, patient safety, the environment, drug policy and drug abuse. All these aspects are vital to the education of a future pharmacist.” - Elliott Cook

Medical community partners AVMA

Medical community partners Health Department

Educator/student partners NIE Service learning (Earth Action) Penn State Behrend Environment Classes Pharmacy students (LECOM) on the LECOM page

General public partners Gained through presentations Anglers Community Groups Service learning projects (educators, students, student families and peers, the community) Thru collection events Springhill Senior Center (outreach to residents) Law enforcement (long term partner in controlled drug disposal) Thru mailback programs University of Maine Convention and other displays

Policy makers April 2011 Pharmaceutical Pollution Task Force meeting Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative Webinar for elected officials around the Great Lakes (71 municipalities) Product Stewardship Institute Earth Action

Better news coverage

By the numbers People reached Collection Events Pills collected Teacher Workshops Service Learning Projects

Advice for other Communities Find a willing partner (or two!) Each community has different potential partners (PPCP manufacturers, medical professionals, law enforcement, state and local health agencies, consumers, and PPCP manufacturers) Collaborate to stretch your resources By sharing our education/outreach materials with LECOM faculty and students and Earth Action educators and students we have gained 500+ additional projects spokespeople Involve the media (!) Partners have different reasons for getting involved in an education and outreach or collection effort (reducing diversion, reducing unintentional poisoning, reducing environmental impact, reducing waste), but we can all agree that getting drugs out of circulation and properly destroying them benefits our community.

Lessons learned