Blooms The Chemist and Pharmacycle are celebrating their partnership which has seen over three million medicinal blister packs diverted from landfill.
In total, over 4,000kg of medicine packaging has been recycled since October 2022, when Blooms The Chemist rolled out in-store blister pack collection boxes across its entire network.
“Many Australians are unaware that blister packs, the packaging that pills and tablets come in, can’t be recycled through kerbside bins because they are made of various plastics and foils,” Blooms The Chemist environmental impact committee lead, Kimberley Baldassarre said.
“With the roll out of convenient, in-store collection boxes, combined with encouragement and education from our passionate pharmacists, our customers have responded, and we have been overwhelmed by the uptake in recycling blister packs.”
Due to the success of the program, Blooms The Chemist and Pharmacycle will be continuing their partnership.
“It’s truly impressive what we have managed to achieve with the national support from Blooms The Chemist over the past year,” Pharmacycle director, Afonso Firmo said.
“For blister packs to be recycled, they first need to be collected in sufficient volume to warrant the use of specialised recycling technology, and we have certainly managed to collect this volume with the help of Blooms The Chemist. We are delighted that our partnership will continue.”
Blooms The Chemist is the only national pharmacy company in Australia to have launched this initiative across its entire network of more than 115 stores.