Waste disposal firm staff accused of stealing meds

Employees at a US facility used to dispose of expired and discarded pharmaceutical products have been accused of stealing and diverting them for illicit sale.

Staff at the Wheelabrator Falls facility in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, are reported to have stolen a whopping $1.2m-worth of drugs like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder therapy Adderall, anxiety drugs like clonazepam and opioid analgesics such as Oxycontin and Vicodin and sold them on to drug dealers in the area.

The allegations, reported in the Bucks County Courier Times, suggest that “employees used a crane to separate the pills from mounds of trash once marked for incineration, set them aside near a door and walked them outside.”

Since learning of the scheme, Wheelabrator has altered its policies about handling the drugs, and now requires witnesses to their incineration, according to the report. However, the revelations come at a terrible time for the company operating the facility – Wheelabrator Technologies – as it filed registration documents for an initial public offering in July.