Blooms the Chemist and Pharmacycle are celebrating over three million medicinal blister packs diverted from landfill, with the successful partnership to be extended.
In total, over 4000kgs 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,” said Kimberley Baldassarre, environmental impact committee lead at Blooms.
“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 and Pharmacycle will be extending their partnership.
“It’s truly impressive what we have managed to achieve with the national support from Blooms over the past year,” said Afonso Firmo, director of Pharmacycle.
“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. We are delighted that our partnership will continue.”
“We are proud to lead the way in what can be achieved for important environmental issues in the pharmacy industry,” Baldassarre added.
“Our partnership with Pharmacycle allows us to reduce our waste to landfill and help our local communities to do the same. We look forward to maintaining the momentum as we head into year two of this vital work.”
Blooms is the only national pharmacy company in Australia to have launched this initiative across its entire network of more than 115 stores.
