Blister Pack Recycling

Those of you living in High Halstow may have seen and used the recycling point for Medicine Blister Packs situated at the front of St Margaret’s Church. This has been there for a few months now and has proved very successful with local people keen to recycle correctly their empty pill packaging. However, this recycling initiative is proving too successful and may have to be discontinued…….. Blister Packs are usually made up of a laminated combination of foil and plastic. It is not possible for blister packs to be recycled at kerbside. However they can be recycled, but only by using special and costly recycling equipment. TerraCycle (in conjunction with Superdrug) run a Medicine Packet Recycling Programme, but our nearest drop off point is Superdrug in Sittingbourne. So one must consider whether travelling to Sittingbourne to drop these off is actually helping our environment or just increasing our Carbon Footprint! Also Superdrug are not happy about taking the quantity we have been delivering. It appears they are only set up to take ‘own supply’ quantities rather than a whole village’s consumption. Hence our ‘too successful’ comment above. Not recycling is incredibly wasteful and environmentally damaging, so we approached Medway Council’s Environmental Engagement Officer Julia Heath, who was keen to help. She contacted Glaxosmithkline who said ‘we are currently working with material suppliers to trial PVC free materials and to help ensure the recycling technology is more commercially viable’. ‘We are committed to removing PVC from our blisters and are planning to exit PVC use by 2030’. In the meantime, what do we do? If you frequently travel to Sittingbourne and would like to help, please contact: [email protected] The High Halstow Environment Group meets bimonthly and everyone is welcome to get involved and make a difference.