Niki Watts, pharmacist owner and IP at Vale of Neath Pharmacy in Glynneath, Wales, tells Saša Janković how a recycling initiative has increased footfall for his services. Reducing our environmental impact has become a core part of our business, and tackling the amount of waste we were sending to landfill is integral to this. We also had a number of customers – and patients from the GP surgery we are attached to – coming in with bags full of empty blister packs and asking us if there was a way to recycle them, as blister packets are not recycled by local councils. I did some research and found that Terracycle runs an Empty Medicine Blister Packs Zero Waste Box scheme so we signed up for that.

For better or worse plastic now plays a huge part in all our lives. But as mountains of the stuff gather in our recycling centres, tonnes of discarded plastics drown our seas and microplastics are even being found in our blood - it has never been more vital we get to grips with the situation for the sake of the environment. TerraCycle told us it can recycle everything from sweet and confectionary wrappers to biscuit wrappers, personal, beauty care packaging and more into plastic pellets that can then be used to create other items like outdoor furniture, fence posts, lumber and construction materials.

DISPOSABLE gloves, cheese wrappers, and biscuit packets are among the mounds of rubbish that have helped raise £2,000 locally for healthcare overseas. More than 2,000kg of waste has been collected by volunteers including Amersham resident Kate Lillie who are helping tackle 'unrecyclable' waste.

The new technology will help centralise and scale the tracking of all waste movements through each step of TerraCycles global supply chain. International recycling leader TerraCycle and Evreka, a Sustainability as a Service company that specialises in waste management tracking, announced the implementation of cutting-edge waste management technology that uses real-time, optimised data that will revolutionise the waste collection operations for all TerraCycle waste streams.

A company specialising in recycling ‘hard-to-recycle’ waste has created a range of Zero Waste Boxes specifically for pharmacies. Manufacturer TerraCycle said waste such as face masks and blister packs contain a mix of materials which makes separating and processing them too complex and expensive for councils to accept in kerbside collections.

TerraCycle and Evreka, a company specialising in waste management tracking, have developed a waste management technology that uses real-time data to optimise collection operations across the former’s waste streams. According to the companies, Evreka’s software will provide asset and operations management solutions for TerraCycle’s Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) while working in tandem with the company’s current systems.

Local business owner Beccy Lloyd has signed Extra Mile Printing & Embroidery up to collect the waste through the Colgate and Hello Oral Care Recycling Programme and the Garnier Personal Care and Beauty Recycling Programme offered by TerraCycle, world leaders in recycling hard-to-recycle waste. Residents can drop off their oral care, beauty and personal care waste of any brand to Extra Mile Printing & Embroidery on Lower North Street, Cheddar.

Of all the bonkers commemorative dates in the calendar (looking at you, Hug Your Cat Day), one that deserves all the airtime it can get, is Global Recycling Day, which happens every year on 18th March. Both Garnier and L’Occitane have partnered up with recycling company TerraCycle to ensure that our empty beauty products are being dealt with accordingly. Simply drop of your bottles (from any brand) at a local drop off point and they’ll sort, separate and recycle to ensure the absolute minimum ends up in landfill.

Happy Global Recycling Day. First introduced back in 2018, today is all about educating people on the importance of recycling for preserving our planet.

A woman from Reading has saved five million pieces of waste from landfill and incineration. Ali Chaney, from Three Miles Cross, has collected Marigold gloves, sweet wrappers and beauty products over nine years which can’t be recycled by the council.