B.J. Tesch is bounding through the aisles of Snyders Drug Store in Mankato like Christmas has come early — this Thursday afternoon it was truly better to give than to receive.

“It’s wonderful. I hope they have it again. I think it’s really important. As important as recycling cans. Even more important, because you really don’t think about it,” she said.

Tesch had just emptied her medicine cabinet and dropped it off at Snyders, which was the site of a pharmaceutical collection Thursday afternoon organized by Blue Earth County.

Many of the 109 people who dropped off 115 pounds of pharmaceuticals were concerned about drinking water contamination.

“I don’t want them to get into the environment,” Sharon Halstead of Waterville said.

Others said they didn’t want their prescription medications to touch off a drug addiction in a curious youngster. Several people declined to give their names. The drop-off is anonymous; there are no forms to fill out.

At least one deputy was on hand during the entire event, a requirement of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The most popular controlled substance at the first event, held Oct. 29, was the pain killer OxyContin. Controlled substances, so named because they are more heavily regulated by the government, are collected by the sheriff’s office and incinerated.

No illegal drugs were collected at the first event. The DEA does not certify the collection of illegal drugs but county officials have agreed to accept them.

The drop-off process is simple for participants: Just toss the pill bottles in a bin. A worker then blocks out names with a magic marker and hands them off to be sorted into controlled and non-controlled substances.

No more collections are scheduled but the county has authorization from the DEA for a year so they’re thinking about a spring event. The first collection yielded 74 pounds of pharmaceuticals, including seven pounds of controlled substances.

These were the first such collections in Mankato. There have been about 10 statewide over the past few years, said Julie Johnson, executive vice president and CEO of the Minnesota Pharmacists Association.