LEWISTON – People from around the county brought enough pills to fill a 55-gallon drum to Medicine Disposal Day on Saturday.

Held on the grounds of Lewiston High School, 56 households dropped off medicine no longer needed, said organizer Christine Letcher of Healthy Androscoggin of Lewiston.

The goal was to prevent the medicine from being flushed down the toilet or getting into the wrong hands. The drugs will be incinerated by Environmental Projects Inc., an Auburn firm that handles hazardous waste, Letcher said.

“For a first event it was pretty good when we look at the amount of medicine we collected,” she said. “We ended up with 513 containers. That’s about 20,000 pills or doses.”

They included prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, vitamins and veterinarian medicine. Among them were 63 bottles of painkillers such as Oxycodone. Many of those narcotics were sitting in medicine cabinets, which is how a lot of teenagers end up abusing prescription drugs, Letcher said. Saturday’s collection means those 63 bottles “are getting out of the hands of potential users.”

A second reason for disposing of the medicine is to prevent what doctors used to recommend: flushing old drugs down the toilet.

Studies have shown traces of drugs showing up in wildlife and waterways. “Whatever we can do to keep this medicine out of the environment is good,” Letcher said.

Many who brought unneeded drugs did so because a loved one had died recently.

“One little boy who was about 7 or 8 said his grandmother died several months ago. He didn’t want the medicine to hurt the environment,” Letcher said. “I was so pleased to hear a little boy who had awareness of the impact on the environment.”

Several elderly folks talked about husbands and wives they had lost. “It was emotional,” Letcher said.

People drove up to check points and handed medicine to greeters who asked questions for a survey: zip codes, how they heard about the event and why they were disposing of the medicine. That data will be used to encourage future legislation allowing safe drug disposals.

Saturday’s event was coordinated by the Lewiston Police Department, Healthy Androscoggin, Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments and other organizations. Donations for the event came from private organizations, including Hannaford pharmacies, Central Maine Heart and Vascular Institute, St. Mary’s Regional Medicine Center, The Medicine Shoppe and United Ambulance.

More disposal days will be held but had not been scheduled. “The only thing holding us back is money,” Letcher said. Disposing of the medicine collected on Saturday could cost more than $1,000.