Pharmacycle now has more than 1000 free blister pack drop-off locations across Australia, marking a milestone for the recycling program and expanding access for households and communities.
The network includes participating pharmacies, councils and businesses, with each additional site aimed at diverting medicinal blister packs from landfill and supporting recycling efforts.
Pharmacycle is described as Australia’s first end-to-end recycling program for household and commercial medicinal blister pack waste, with free drop-off available at participating pharmacies.
Collected blister packs are transported to a processing facility in Sydney, where they are checked, weighed and sorted. Contaminants such as residual medication, paperboard packaging or non-accepted materials are removed, with medication sent to a licensed disposal facility where required.
The remaining blister packs are processed through mechanical recycling systems, including shredding, grinding, air-density separation and electrostatic separation, to separate aluminium from plastic. The recovered materials are then stored in bulk before being sent to end users.
