Recycle your inhalers at the Co-Operative
After our stories recently about the 250 tons of out of date, surplus and redundant medicines that are
destroyed in an incinerator each year and the slightly more up beat story about the ability to
recycle your unwanted medicines to help people in developing countries, I was interested to hear another recycling story shared by one of our facebook fans.
David posted up about the latest initiative between the Co-operative Pharmacy, GlaxoSmithKline and Terracycle.
The three companies have pioneered a initiative to enable patients with respiratory illnesses to recycle their inhalers at
40 participating Co-operative Pharmacies across South Wales and the South of England.
This scheme is the first in Europe and is on trial for six months. Around 35 million inhalers such as Ventolin are used in the UK each year, generating 450 tonnes of waste which ends up in landfill or is incinerated.
The inhalers will be collected in participating Co-Operative pharmacies and collected monthly by Terracycle where different parts of the inhaler will be recycled. The part which still can’t be recycled are the blister strips.
Here’s what happens to the components:
Plastics
The plastics will remain on site for processing, after which the recycled components will be sold on for use in new products.
Aerosol
The recovered aerosol will be sent to a specialist company who use compaction and gas-liquid separation in order to recycle the metal components and collect any remaining liquid or propellant gas. The gas is then used as a replacement fuel in high temperature incinerators and cement kilns and no part of the aerosol container goes to landfill.
Blister strip
The blister strip which previously contained medically active ingredients will be treated by a specialist process in accordance with clinical guidelines.
There are still quite a lot of unanswered questions i my eyes about what will actually be happening to these inhalers, but I’d love to know what you think about the story!
Co-operative Pharmacy clinical services manager Fiona Caplan Dean said the potential for recycling products and reducing waste was "huge".
The scheme has been launched in partnership with recycling company TerraCycle UK, which will be responsible for collecting the used inhalers for recycling.
People with respiratory illnesses can now recycle their inhalers thanks to a new initiative launched by The Co-operative Pharmacy and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
The scheme – a first in Europe – is part of an initial six-month trial in partnership with eco-friendly manufacturer, TerraCycle UK. Approximately 35 million GSK respiratory inhalers, including 25 million Ventolin packs are used in the UK each year1 generating some 450 tonnes of waste which potentially end up in landfill or incineration
ASTHMATICS in Southampton will be among the first in Europe to divert millions of inhalers from the rubbish tip.
The Co-operative Pharmacy in
Thornhill is one of a handful of chemists to take part in a pilot scheme encouraging people to recycle their inhalers.
The six-month trial is the first of its kind in Europe and aims to reduce the number of respiratory devices that generate around 450 tonnes of waste a year in the UK.
Those suffering from respiratory illnesses will be able to just drop off their devices in a specially designed recycling box at the pharmacy, which will be collected every month to ensure every element of the inhaler is recycled.
The initiative was launched today by The Co-operative and GlaxoSmith Kline (GSK), which sees 35m of their inhalers end up in landfill every year.
Fiona Caplan-Dean, from The Co-operative Pharmacy, said: “There are more than five million people in the UK currently receiving treatment for asthma and other respiratory illnesses who rely on the use of inhalers so the potential for recycling these products and reducing wastage is huge.
“Pharmacists are ideally placed to help reduce the impact of inhalers on the
environment and as an organisation committed to responsible retailing as part of our ethical strategy we are delighted to be at the forefront of this initiative, which is simple, yet effective.”
