AIBU to ask charity shop customer to take away the donation she brought?

[CharityShopQ]

I volunteer at a Charity Shop and today a lady brought in a box of Codeine to donate to us, expiry date 2024. I explained we couldn’t accept medication as a donation. The customer asked if I could put it in our bin.
I said that we struggle for bin space and the best thing would be to take expired medication to the chemist to dispose of.
The customer did take the expired medication away, but one of my friends has said I was tight. She feels I could have quite easily put it in the charity shop bin as it was only one box
snd not a big deal.
Was IBU?

YOu are not being unreasonable she was being a cheeky cow trying to offload the codeine on you and anyway you're supposed to take it to t he chemist not the charity shop.

It's not yours and you don't take medicine so it's fair to tell her to take it to a pharmacy. You're not really meant to put it in the bin as far as I know. Not sure why. But yeah you did nothing wrong.

How peculiar she would think a charity shop sells out of date medication?!

Did she expect that you could sell her expired medication to some lucky person? That’s mad.

you were correct. Also she’d have need back with her late husband’s dentures and half used anusol if you’d accepted them.

one of my friends has said I was tight. She feels I could have quite easily put it in the charity shop bin as it was only one box and not a big deal.
Please take the contents of your kitchen bin round to her house, to put in her bin. The smellier the better.

If it was pure codeine, i.e. not something like co-codamol, then it would have been a prescription only medication and illegal to pass on to someone else else anyway.

People go through the bins at charity shops can you imagine someone finding a box of codeine taking it and using it

Just give it to the chemist ffs

You shouldn’t put unused medicines in the bin because a child or animal could find them and be poisoned. They can also contaminate soil and water. You did the right thing telling her to take them to a pharmacy to dispose of.

I know! We thought she had accidentally left her medication in the bag of donations at first, so tried to give it her back when she came back to the shop. However, it became apparent that she did intend to donate it!

Well, if it's codeine it probably has a 'street value' 😂

It needs to go back to the pharmacy. You wouldn't be allowed to take it

You shouldn't put any medication in the bin, it goes back to a chemist.

Of course you were RIGHT! A charity shop is for donating stuff that can be resold, anything you can't re-sell you should refuse. Plus medication should be properly disposed of through a pharmacy, not just thrown in a bin. Even if some things you could just take and then throw away if you can't sell, medication you shouldn't even just throw away!

Maybe she was an addict trying to get rid of temptation

No other explanation to do something so bizarre

My best to her

YANBU and it wouldn’t be responsible
for you to put a prescription only pain killer in an unlocked bin.

Even if it had a future expiry date, when have charity shops been able to sell on even over the counter medication! Your friend is bonkers to even question your totally proportionate and valid response. Charity shops are not disposal facilities (although for many people they are)

Out of date medication should always go back to the chemist/pharmacist for safe disposal - any single one in the country will take it - it's an NHS regulation. You are not supposed to put medicine in bins under any circumstances at all.

This reminds me of that thread where people thought it was fine/normal to put batteries in bins as well.

And even putting it in your bin opens up a whole load of issues should it then get into the wrong hands. I used to work in harm reduction drug services (when they existed). The number of people wandering in with sharps bins (medically prescribed) who could not be arsed to take them to whichever chemist/ hospital etc was huge. The cost of us disposing of sharps bins safely was also huge and our budget was tiny. People are just either clueless or entitled.