Blister Pack Recycling Program to reduce waste to landfill

Published on 11 October 2022

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Did you know Australia produces over 76 million tonnes of waste each year? Only 60% of this waste is recycled.

Bellingen Shire Council is taking action on waste and supporting our community to transition to a circular economy. In 2021-22, 68% of our Shire’s waste was diverted from landfill. While this was a great achievement, we are striving to do even better this year.

Council will be working with The Urunga Pharmacy and the Bellingen Compounding Pharmacy to reduce waste to landfill through a trial program of recycling medicine blister packs. The Dorrigo Plateau Pharmacy has already been receiving blister packs from the community for recycling over the past year and report the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“Blister packs are made from various plastics or foils with pockets that contain tablets or capsules. The mix of these kinds of materials makes the packs hard to recycle and they can’t be placed in regular kerbside recycling bins. This means an enormous amount of blister packs goes straight to landfill every year, where they take hundreds of years to break down.” Said Bellingen Shire Council’s Sustainability Officer, Jacqui Russell.

“TerraCycle’s dedicated Blister Pack Recycling Program provides one of the only ways to recycle these kinds of materials that are so difficult to recycle.”

‘Sponsoring the recycling of blister packs through Terracycle is a great opportunity for Council to support both our local pharmacies and community to recycle the packs and to reduce our Shire’s waste to landfill.”

Over the months ahead, we will be working with the pharmacies to monitor the recycling program to make sure we are adopting best practice in recycling across our Shire. We would love to hear from our community about their experience in taking part in the program so we can continue to improve recycling practices and reduce waste to landfill, helping to make our Shire more sustainable into the future.

To take part in the Blister Pack Recycling Program, you can now take your empty packs to a pharmacy near you for processing by TerraCycle. Your local pharmacist can provide more advice about the program and how you can get involved.