Recycling medicine blister packs

[kaberett]

... is apparently something I can pay someone to do (non-UK localisations available). Along with 3D printing materials and a host of other things.

Still at the "contemplating, also does this actually look like it's reasonably energy-efficient" stage, but. Huh.

Comments

[ceb]

...ooh, thanks for the link!

[kaberett]

Would be v interested to hear if you have any further thoughts on the topic!

[feanelwa]

Ooooh, they do cat food packaging! And nitrile gloves, though it seems you can only get a thingy free if you use exclusively KimTech ones and ahaha no we are a public funded institution. That's a lot of money for a box though :o it would be good to have an idea how many points you get back for a full box so I can see the actual costs if I did a few.

[feanelwa]

Oh bugger bugger bugger, if you click through to try and get the medicine packaging one on the website it doesn't exist anymore.

[kaberett]

HOWEVER, having poked around some more, the gum packaging one does, is at approximately the same price-point, and takes blister packs! So.

[feanelwa]

Oh cool. I liked how the other one took inhalers too though. Maybe I should ask at the doctors if they know anywhere nearby that does it, when I next go.

[kaberett]

Pharmacies apparently take them! I discovered, when reading a bunch about recycling this afternoon.

edit: here we go, details!

[feanelwa]

Yaaaayyyy you are the best. I may switch to a pharmacy that does that, since the Lloyds one that does my repeats appear to be mainly illiterate anyway...

[jesse_the_k]

...but you'd have to break open all the blisters first, right?

[kaberett]

I mean, yes, but that's how all my meds come?

[jesse_the_k]

Wow!

(You have to pay extra for that round here.)

[kaberett]

I thought that might be the case! Yeah, in the UK basically all prescription meds and quite a lot of non-prescription ones come in blisterproof packs, on the grounds that that makes it harder for e.g. children to ingest them All At Once having once got into the packet. Obviously it has its downsides if your hands are wobbly (so I wear ring splints and do a week's worth of meds into dosette boxes at a time on a good hands day...) but you can typically get your local pharmacy to sort dosette boxes out for you (for free!) if they're a problem.

What this means is that I end up with a lot of blister strips going into landfill (because they're mixed material and uneconomical for the local council to recycle), which has consistently upset me. This afternoon I got around to having another go at looking up recycling options and found one, which I'm pretty excited about :-)

(I didn't mean to be dismissive or condescending! I'm just a bit tired and wasn't sure I was reading right, so sought to clarify buuuuut didn't have the brain to wrangle tone. Apologies if upset caused!)