Since it began last December, the Community Syringe Redemption Program has collected more than 768,000 needles and reduced complaints by 50 percent, and it now picks up an average of 17,000 a week, according to the program’s data. It also provides a link to social services and addiction treatment for participants, who often lack shelter or use drugs themselves.

“There are precious few win-wins when it comes to dealing with the daily impacts of hundreds of people using drugs in this area: this seems to be one of them,” David Stone, president of the Blackstone/Franklin Square Neighborhood Association in the South End, said.

The redemption program, which Allie Hunter believes is the only one of its kind in the country, launched in December. The goal was to collect 1,000 needles a week. Instead, the participants hauled in that number in the first hour. “At that moment, it was, ‘OK, this is going to work,’” Hunter said. “We’re collecting about 4,000 needles per day. We took in over 31,000 needles this week alone,” she said Friday. The early-morning work gives people a sense of purpose and a potential link to services, said Hunter, cofounder and president of Addiction Response Resources. The team offers masks and the overdose-reversing drug naloxone for participants to have on hand if needed, and can provide a doorway into addiction treatment.“We try to have a positive interaction with them,” she said. “It might be the only positive interaction that someone has during the day.”

“The needle buy-back program has been one of the only consistent success stories we have seen at Mass and Cass,” Stephen Fox of the South End Forum, an umbrella group of neighborhood associations, said in an e-mail. “Almost without exception, the folks I am speaking with day to day recognize a significant decrease in needles on the ground since the needle buy-back program has been operating.”

“It’s been incredibly successful,” agreed Sue Sullivan, executive director of the Newmarket Business Association. The number of needles on the street have been markedly reduced, but not eliminated, she said in an interview.

— The Boston Globe, front page, 20 September 2021