"Uncomfortable with Blood on Them" Over 10 Million Sold… "How Do I Throw Them Away?"

〈Anchor〉

More than 10 million Mounjaro injection pens alone were supplied in the first half of this year. While the use of obesity treatment injections is increasing significantly as a result, there are no clear guidelines on how to dispose of them after home use. Hospitals and pharmacies tell users to handle them on their own at home, and the government's guidelines do not even mention the matter.

Reporter Jo Yoon-ha investigated.

〈Reporter〉

Injection pens are sometimes disposed of separately along with plastic egg packaging containers, or wrapped in paper towels and thrown into regular pay-as-you-throw trash bags.

These are the injection pens of obesity treatments such as Mounjaro and Wegovy after use.

Wegovy, which allows the needle and injection pen to be separated, only requires changing the needle, resulting in one injection pen being discarded per month. Mounjaro is an all-in-one type where the needle and injection pen are attached, meaning one injection pen is discarded every week.

The problem is that neither users nor sellers know the exact disposal guidelines.

[Pharmacy: You can just throw them away at home. (There's a needle, though.) There's a cap. You put the cap back on. You should discard them so they don't get contaminated. (In a regular trash bag?) Yes.]

[Mounjaro User: They told me I could just throw this away at home as regular trash. I still felt a bit uneasy about it. Since you inject with it, blood gets on the needle.]

The guidelines of the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment only contain content regarding needles and syringes classified as medical waste, with no mention of "injection pens."

Wegovy was launched in 2024 and Mounjaro last year, but government guidelines have not changed since they were revised earlier in 2023.

So how should they be discarded?

The stance of the Climate Ministry is that self-administered injection products fall under "disposed pharmaceuticals" according to existing guidelines and must be discarded in collection boxes installed at local community centers or mailboxes.

However, the disposed pharmaceutical collection boxes at community centers state that pills, powdered medicines, ointments, and liquid medicines should be discarded, and there is likewise no guidance regarding injection pens.

Because disposed pharmaceuticals can cause water and soil pollution or induce resistant bacteria, they must be separately collected and then incinerated. However, injection pens, which inevitably retain remaining injection fluid, have effectively been left neglected for over two years.

[Lee Jong-bae / National Assembly Climate and Labor Committee Member (People Power Party): I think the government needs to clearly establish disposal standards and present them to the public so that citizens can know the details and follow them.]

Prescriptions for Wegovy and Mounjaro reached 2.7 million cases from their launch through July, and Mounjaro injection pens supplied in the first half of this year alone exceeded 11 million.

(Video reporting: Choi Ho-jun, Lee Byung-joo, Lee Seung-hwan | Video editing: Kim Jun-hee | VJ: Shin So-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.