A pervasive type of medicine packaging has proved to be a nuisance for Australia’s waste-reduction efforts, but a new national push aims to make recycling easier.

Millions of these blister packs reportedly end up in Australia’s landfill annually; a few companies offer blister pack recycling services, but drop-off locations are often rare and hard to find.

A new national program run by Pharmacycle aims to fix the problem by installing dedicated Codral-branded blister pack recycling bins at Chemist Warehouse and My Chemist pharmacies across the country, in partnership with Codral maker Kenvue.

“This collaboration aligns perfectly with our commitment to providing accessible, sustainable recycling solutions that ensure blister packs are repurposed into valuable products,” Pharmacycle business development manager Jason Rijnbeek said.

The move comes after a successful trial began last year across 100 Chemist Warehouse pharmacies in Victoria.

Pharmacycle blister pack recycling bins are also available across the country at Blooms the Chemist pharmacies, as well at select independent and franchise pharmacies.

Pharmacycle claims to have recycled 36 million blister packs since July 2022.

Why is blister pack recycling an issue?

Many medications are commonly sold in blister packs, with pills or tablets encased in individual plastic bubbles on an aluminium tray.

Separately, these materials are recyclable, but together they are considered waste.

Deakin University senior lecturer Trevor Thornton told TND many well-intentioned Australians simply throw empty blister packs into their household recycling bins – but this would contaminate actual recyclable materials.

Even if those willing to put in more effort manage to separate the plastic and aluminium materials, the results would be so small they could easily continue to contaminate various recycling streams.

Thornton said in that case, it would be better to throw empty blister packs in the rubbish rather than the recycling bin.

Blister packs’ composite material make recycling difficult. Photo: Pharmacycle

“When [aluminium and plastic composite products] go into the recycling stream, they contaminate it and get into the paper–cardboard stream, or they can even get into the metal stream and contaminate that,” he said.

“You’re not going to generate [enough blister pack waste] to have a separate collection system at home.

“But people will often go to shopping centres where the chemists and so forth are, so having that capacity to be able to dispose of them there is a really good approach.”

Take responsibility and explore alternatives

Pharmacycle claims to be the only blister pack recycling program in Australia that provides an end-to-end recycling solution by managing the collection, logistics and processing of blister packs.

Once collected from the pharmacy, blister packs are transported to one of the company’s processing facilities, where specialised machinery separates the materials before they can be recycled.

The aluminium is sent to Weston Aluminium in NSW’s Hunter Valley to produce an aluminium de-oxidant product that aids in the steel-making process; the plastic component is sent to Think Fencing in Portarlington, Victoria, to make products such as PVC decking and fencing.

Australia has been burnt by big promises from a recycling program before, and Thornton said a validation process was key to reassure the community that their recycling efforts would not go to waste.

“It’s really important that there is … an auditing process,” he said.

“How much is being collected? Where it’s been collected from? Are there issues of contamination [with] people handing them back with some medication still in them?”

In addition to increasing recycling, Thornton said there should also be an aim to phase out aluminium-plastic composite blister packs entirely.

Companies such as Huhtamaki and Go For Zero offer alternatives made out of materials such as paper, but these type of blister packs have yet to become mainstream.

“I don’t understand why we have to have the foil and the plastic,” he said.

“Can we just have foil, or can we just have plastic?

“That’s something that the pharmaceutical companies should take some ownership of, and … anybody who’s generating those composite materials … they’ve got to look at management options.”