NATIONAL Pharmacies has seen a massive response from customers for its empty medicine blister pack recycling initiative (PD 08 Nov), with an initial pilot scheme in nine stores seeing about 60,000 packs diverted from landfill in just six weeks.
The program, conducted in partnership with pharmaceutical recycler Pharmacycle, will be expanded to all 44 National Pharmacies stores, with the group's CEO, Vito Borrello, saying the huge consumer support was heartening.
"Members and customers clearly want to do the right thing and we will give them the means to do just that," he said.
"We are, therefore, excited to extend blister pack recycling to all our stores in South Australia, Victoria and NSW," he added.
"It is an initiative that aligns with our purpose at National Pharmacies," he added, with customers vocal on social media in their praise - including many who said they had been saving 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 that separates plastic from aluminium, with the components then repurposed as construction materials and thermal blocks.
Pharmacycle's Jason Rijnbeek said the business had the capacity to recycle over 1 billion blister packs each year.
"We need to build partnerships with forward-thinking organisations like National Pharmacies to build our network of collection points."
The trial ran at stores in Gawler, Golden Grove, Mitcham, Norwood, Victor Harbor, Blackwood, Findon and Glenelg in SA, and Middle Brighton in Vic, with the initial idea to participate coming from an employee via National Pharmacies' internal innovation hub.
Pharmacist Dina Maiale is pictured at National Pharmacies store in Norwood, one of the outlets which trialled the scheme.
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