The numbers are still being added up, but organizers are pleased with the results of a recent national prescription drug drop-off day.

“This was our first experience with it and I was very surprised at the number of prescriptions that we actually received that day,” says Laurel Ross, pharmacy operations manager for Capital Health.

Ross helped coordinate the event in the Halifax area. She says they used 20-litre pails to collect pills.

“We collected, out of these, three were sort of regular prescriptions and we had one bucket that was full of narcotics and controlled substances,” she says.

Several drop-off sites were set up across the country on May 11, the first of its kind in a national initiative to safely collect and destroy unused and expired prescription medication.

“In Nova Scotia, we got 300 pounds of prescription products,” says Kentville Police Chief Mark Mander, president of the Nova Scotia Chiefs of Police Association.

Mander says roughly 430,000 pills, both over-the-counter and prescription, were collected in Nova Scotia.

He says pharmacists, health authorities, addictions services and Health Canada all worked together to create the event, in the hopes of getting prescription drugs off the streets and out of the wrong hands.

“This is probably the one where they community can participate the greatest by getting involved and looking at their own medicine cabinets and looking at what’s in their home,” says Mander.

According to the Department of Justice, there were 357 prescription drug-related deaths in Nova Scotia between 2007 and 2011.

The drop-off day meant the prescription medication wouldn’t be illegally distributed or enter the eco-system. It also raised awareness about what people can do with old or unused medication.

“Certainly in Nova Scotia, you can take medications to any of your local pharmacies and have things properly disposed,” says Kent Toombs, clinical pharmacy manager at Capital Health.

Toombs says it’s also important to keep medication locked up.

“And also cleared out because, of course, there’s children in the house or people that sometimes there can be accidental poisoning as well,” he says. “My wife, who’s a pediatrician, often says when it comes to certain pills, one can kill.”

Those involved in the drop-off day say they hope it becomes an annual event.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Jacqueline Foster