Pharmacycle blister packs

SUSTAINABILITY

National Pharmacies first to recycle blister packs

South Australia’s first pharmacy chain to recycle empty medicine blister packs has been overwhelmed by public support for the initiative in a trial at nine stores.

Over the past six weeks, National Pharmacies’ members and customers diverted 1200 litres or 60,000 blister packs from landfill in the trial program conducted in partnership with national pharmaceutical recycler, Pharmacycle.

Blister packs have not previously been recyclable and cannot be disposed of in household recycling.

With the adoption of the program across all 44 National Pharmacies stores, it is estimated that over the next 12 months National Pharmacies members and customers will divert from landfill more than 30,000 litres or about 1.4 million blister packs.

National Pharmacies Chief Executive, Vito Borrello, said National Pharmacies was heartened by the strong consumer support. “Members and customers clearly want to do the right thing and we will give them the means to do just that,” said Mr Borrello.

“We are, therefore, excited to extend blister pack recycling to all our stores in South Australia, Victoria and NSW. It is an initiative that aligns with our purpose at National Pharmacies. Our members have been vocal on social media in their praise of it. Many said they had been saving and storing blister packs at home for years not knowing what to do with them.”

Pharmacycle collects full boxes from participating pharmacies to process the contents at a specialist facility in Australia that separates plastic from aluminium. Plastic and aluminium are re-purposed as construction materials and thermal blocks.

Jason Rijnbeek, Pharmacycle’s Business Development Manager, says that with the capacity to recycle more than 1 billion blister packs every year we all can make a real impact for good. “We need to build partnerships with forward-thinking organisations like National Pharmacies to build our network of collection points,” said Mr Rijnbeek. “These partnerships make recycling of blister packs easy and convenient.”

The success of the trial highlights strong community demand for better recycling of pharmaceutical waste and, with the program expanding to include all National Pharmacies stores, Pharmacycle and National Pharmacies will rise to meet consumer expectations.