Waste ‘heirarchy’
It is worth remembering – refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle – in that order.
Refuse & Reduce: If something is medically not necessary or too much, speak to your doctor to ask about stopping or reducing it. Medications cannot be re-used once they have been taken out the pharmacy so check first if you don’t need a particular medication if you have several repeats.
Re-use: Many medical devices now including some insulin injectable pens are re-usable.
PenCycle
PenCycle aims to recycle/repurpose any Novo Nordisk disposable devices to avoid them potentially being sent to landfill. It has previously been piloted in 3 areas across the UK and they are now rolling this out nationwide.
The initiative covers any Novo Nordisk Flextouch or Flexpen disposable pens used in medications to treat diabetes, obesity or growth hormone treatments. 23 million of these pens are used annually each year in the UK and across the 3 areas during the pilot phase, 14,500 pens were returned to be recycled. This equated to:
246kg of plastic + 60kg of glass + 19kg of metal
all being diverted from landfill or incineration – and being repurposed to new products instead.
For more information, you can visit https://www.pen-cycle.co.uk/
Unused medication
All unused medications, and used hormone patches or empty hormone gel packets should be returned to pharmacies for disposal to avoid medicines going to landfill or getting into water courses. Empty inhalers can also be returned to pharmacies for recycling.
Worldwide, over 600 pharmaceuticals or their transformation products have been found in sewage or waste water treatment plant sludge.
This leads to an increased antibiotic resistance and interference with growth and reproduction in aquatic organisms. Recognised negative effects include:
- Unnecessary animal suffering and potentially human suffering
- Biodiversity loss
- Speeding up ocean acidification
- Additional costs to society and public organisations
And there are likely to be further affects that we do not yet know!
Read all about Endocrine Disruptors here!
For a waiting room video on medicines wastage reduction, please see our waiting room videos section or click here to view the video. For a version of this video with no sound, please click here.