Most everybody's had leftover prescription pills at one time or another. Maybe they were pain pills that went unused following a dental procedure. Or maybe you were feeling better and didn't take the full course of antibiotics prescribed by your doctor.

But at some point, you'll want to get rid of those medications. And they have to be disposed of properly if they are to stay out of the water supply.

Collection events have proliferated in recent years to help residents with proper disposal. Isolated events have grown to steady, reliable collections at places like Wegmans and the county Sheriff's Office substations.

Now, a group formed through the Center for Environmental Information is looking at the problem from a different angle. The group includes representatives from government, academia, the pharmaceutical industry, and insurance companies.

"We're trying to prevent the pharmaceuticals, the pills from becoming waste in the first place," says Ken Carl, a consultant for the Center for Environmental Information.

The organization got a grant from the New York Pollution Prevention Institute, headquartered at RIT, to look into the issue. The group's in the early stages of its work.

The problem is not an easy one to solve. It involves a few different players: the doctors who prescribe the drugs, the pharmacies that dispense the drugs, and the health insurance companies and patients that ultimately pay for them.

The solution will likely be a combination of best management practices and educational outreach, Carl says. For example, a doctor could initially prescribe a smaller number of pills until the patient finds out how he or she reacts to the medication.

The best ideas, Carl says, will come from the grassroots level: people in the business.

The center will analyze data from collection events, Carl says, to see if some medications are disposed of more frequently than others. In other words, are people getting rid of more short-term medications like pain pills than longer-term maintenance medications such as blood pressure pills? Educational efforts could then be focused based on the results.