Members of the Pennsylvania Counterdrug Joint Task Force came to the Lehighton Borough Police Department on Thursday morning to weigh and collect prescription drug drop-offs from the Prescription Drug Take-Back Program.

Six municipalities in Carbon County participate in the program in which a medication drop box is placed in their stations. There, people can properly dispose of their unwanted or expired prescription medication."The program helps to keep prescription drugs out of the wrong hands, off the streets, and out of our rivers," Carbon County District Attorney Jean Engler said.The six municipalities decided to receive the drop boxes at the beginning of 2014. That year, a total of 200 pounds worth of prescription drugs was collected."We already have more than double of that weight this year," Engler said.Police officers from Palmerton, Weatherly, Jim Thorpe, and Mahoning Township arrived and brought medication from their own collections, along with that of the Lehighton Borough Police Department. The boxes and buckets were weighed and recorded before being loaded onto a truck.The task force had made a stop at the Schuylkill County Courthouse in Pottsville earlier in the day for Schuylkill County's collection. After receiving all of the Carbon County collection, they totaled in at about 1,500 pounds of medications.The drugs were then taken to be incinerated at Covanta Plymouth Renewable Energy in Conshohocken.