The scope of this paper is to outline and discuss fundamental guidelines for an expired medication collection program for Brazil and to provide evidence supporting campaigns to raise the population's awareness for the program's success. It is a document-based descriptive review that analyzes official, technical and regulatory documents from Portugal, Canada and Colombia, where there are expired medication collection programs in different stages of implementation. Some of them are already fully implemented, while others are in the preliminary stages, but all of them are achieving good results. The countries listed above were chosen in order to represent Europe, North America and Latin America. Six common guidelines were outlined: co-responsibility in the drug's manufacturing and distribution chain; a strategy of minimization of waste; setting up pilot programs; investigation and classification of waste generated; inter-sectorial communication between different government bodies; and campaigns to raise the community's awareness. These guidelines represent the ground rules for an Expired Medication Collection Program in Brazil.
Medication collection; Awareness; Environmental impact
