RUMFORD — Local police will receive unused, unwanted and expired prescription drugs this month for safe disposal, no questions asked, Chief Stacy Carter said.

The collection will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 27 at the police station at 150 River St.

Those who cannot bring prescriptions in at that time may take them to the station from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. People can place them in to the drug take-back container just outside the police dispatch window.

Rumford police are partnering with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in this nationwide initiative to reduce the risk of accidental overdose by small children or others who mistake the drugs for other medications, Carter said.

Recent studies by the Environmental Protection Agency and others detected pharmaceutical drugs in varying concentrations in the nation’s water supplies.

“Therefore they should not be flushed down the toilet,” Carter said. “Only drugs that are so potentially dangerous to people rather than the environment should be flushed. Such drugs will say on their labels if they are flushable.”

Prescription medications, including those that contain controlled substances, are prescribed to specific people by their doctors. A drug can be helpful to someone with a particular sickness, but harmful to others, he said.

“The DEA is particularly interested in medications containing controlled substances, but we will accept any medicines brought for disposal,” Carter said.

“Needles will not be accepted. We will ask no questions about what you bring for disposal.

“If you want to protect your privacy, you can empty your bottles (except for liquids) into the bin and take the bottles home with you or you can black out with a marker your personal information on the bottles,” he said.

Carter stressed that police will not be looking at or gathering any personal information. The medication will be turned over to the DEA to be incinerated, according to federal environmental guidelines.

For more information, visit www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_disposal/takeback/index.html.