Any other day, a man with transparent bags full of medications might have faced questioning from constables and federal drug agents.

But on Saturday, Robin Green's haul of two 13-gallon trash bags stuffed with pills and creams were welcomed by surgical-gloved officers at Houston Community College's Spring Branch campus.

"This is from my house and mostly from my mother's house," the 63-year-old engineer said as he handed over prescription bottles and over-the-counter drugs. "From her house, it's probably at least 10 years' worth. My mother's 86, so she keeps a lot of stuff."

The HCC drop-off site was among 3,400 locations nationwide involved in Saturday's National Prescription Drug Take-Back Campaign. It's the first U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration effort to accept expired, unused and unwanted medications.

The 3,000-plus pounds collected from 17 Houston-area sites ended up in Houston DEA's drug vault — stored behind aromatic bales of confiscated marijuana.

For many, it has ended a serious dilemma: What should be done with extra meds?

Saturday's donors said they typically would have tossed them in the trash or flushed them down the toilet. Others said they've hidden unwanted prescriptions in cat litter or coffee grounds, then threw them out.

All of those options can contaminate the water supply, posing hazards to people, pets and the environment. The DEA's effort will provide a safer solution.

"We have contracted an incinerator, and they will be burned," said Anthony Scott, an assistant special agent in charge of the agency's Houston office.

Volunteers joined the three dozen DEA agents and interns working sites across the region.

"This is an environmental strategy for change because we raise awareness, provide education and we actually reduce the access in the community," said Sandy Olson, executive director of the Coalition of Behavioral Health Services in Houston.

Keeping children safe

The effort also protects children who find substances for recreational use in the legal stash at home or by a grandparent's bed.

"The medicine cabinet has become the new drug dealer," said Ray Andrews, director of Houston Crackdown, the anti-drug division of the mayor's office for public safety and homeland security. "To the extent we can warn people about drugs and help people dispose of their unused and expired drugs in a legal manner, we are literally saving lives."

Michelle Ash, a kidney and pancreas transplant survivor from the Alief area, brought about 20 bottles — some nearly full — to the Sugar Land drive-through site.

"I haven't known what to do with them," said Ash, 52. "I get a whole prescription of something and take one or two tablets and find out I'm allergic to it. So, some of these are really old, and I don't want to dump them down the drain or flush them or dump them in the garbage."

No questions asked

The take-back is designed for anonymous, no-questions-asked handovers.

Still, a few people showed up sheepishly in shades or dropped their items and sped off. True skeptics might have opted not to turn over their prescriptions to the feds at all.

Some sites, like the D-Spot Community Center on Bissonnet, had very light traffic — possibly because of mistrust of law enforcement.

"Nobody's going to get locked up behind this. We're not going to peel off a label and look at someone's name and that's what they were afraid of," Scott said. "We're hoping that the word gets out from this go-round that nothing bad came out of it and nobody got arrested, and I think next time we do it we'll be more successful than we were today."

Needles and drugs

Mary Jane Sullivan found needles and prescription anxiety drugs among the items evicted from a foreclosure in her Missouri City neighborhood.

"The people who came to clean the house just threw it out. I'm a scavenger, and there was tons of stuff," said Sullivan, 74. "I took some of it to the Salvation Army and Goodwill, but when I found all these hypodermics and Xanax, I knew it had to go somewhere, but I didn't know where to take them."

She also disposed of some of her leftover prescriptions Saturday — sans labels.

"I went through my old medicine cabinet and found stuff from the '90s," Sullivan said, laughing. "I doubt we're going to take it."

cindy.george@chron.com