In an effort to rid medicine cabinets around the country of unused prescription medications, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency is hosting the first-ever nationwide Prescription Drug Take-Back Day on Sept. 25.

People can drop off their expired or unwanted prescription drugs at more than 2,700 sites across the country this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Department officials will then collect and incinerate the medicines.

Click here for more information and to find a collection site near you.

The initiative is meant to educate Americans about how to safely dispose of unwanted pills so they don’t wind up in the water system or in the hands of people who could misuse them, said DEA spokeswoman Barbara Carreno.

“When you throw a bottle of pills in the trash it can be retrieved by kids in the house or neighbors,” she said.

According to a 2008 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 6.2 million Americans 12 years and older had abused prescription drugs — more than the number of people who abused cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and inhalants combined.

This alarming trend makes it even more important to keep unused medications — from painkillers to antidepressants — off household shelves, experts say.

“Most young people who get these drugs and misuse them report that they get them from their families,” said Susan Foster, vice president and director of policy research at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

According to the DEA, 63 percent of teens believe that it’s easy to find prescription drugs in friends’ and family’s medicine cabinets, and two in five teens believe that prescription drugs are much safer than illegal drugs.

“A lot of people think that because these drugs are approved by the FDA and prescribed by a doctor, they’re safe,” she said. “As we can see, that is not true at all.”

The bottom line?

Handing off unused medications to trained professionals at one of the Take-Back sites will ensure that they aren’t misused.

But for those people whose community is not on the DEA’s list of disposal locations, the federal Food and Drug Administration advises that people mix their unwanted medications with kitty litter or coffee grounds before throwing them into the garbage.

“The main idea is to dump your pills into something unsavory,” Carreno said.

The Take-Back Day is also meant to deter people from the age-old practice of flushing unwanted medications down the toilet.

“Traces [of prescription drugs] have been found in the waterways in many major cities in the U.S.,” said Carolyn Ha, a pharmacist and associate director of management affairs at the National Community Pharmacists Association.

“It’s still premature to say what effects they would have on humans, but it’s really disrupting some aquatic ecosystems,” Ha added.