SPAIN has become a 'role model' for other parts of the world thanks to its medications disposal system which helps prevent water contamination and other environmental hazards, according to the non-profit association which collects pharmaceutical waste.
SIGRE's managing director Juan Carlos Mampaso says 'medicine banks' provided by the organisation are set up in practically every chemist's in the country for customers or patients to drop off pills that they no longer need or which have passed their use-by date.
Other healthcare waste such as needles, gauze, disposable or broken thermometers and X-ray plates should not be dropped off in SIGRE banks.
In 2018 – the last complete year – deposits of medications surplus to requirements went up by 12.5%, and the system has inspired other countries in and outside Europe, specifically in Latin America, which are now beginning to create their own medicine deposits.
As well as providing a safe disposal method, the SIGRE banks help raise awareness among patients of the environmental benefits involved, Mampaso says – fewer and fewer people are throwing out-of-date pills down the toilet or in bins, where they could end up in the water supply or in landfill and create toxic effects long term.
If they do not contaminate the water supply, they can still end up in seas and rivers if the sewage plant filters are not up to scratch, and if deposited in the rubbish, end up in landfill where they mix with soil and are soaked into the earth during periods of rainfall, which again, can lead to them leaking into the water supply.
The average patient dropped off 103 grams of medicine in SIGRE banks last year, putting the country well above the European average, with the regions of Navarra, Aragón, Catalunya, the Basque Country, Galicia and Madrid leading the field.
Empty pill boxes and blister packs should also be deposited in SIGRE banks – 20% of the total were dropped off at these points in 2018 – since these can still sometimes contain traces of chemicals which need to be destroyed under controlled conditions.
Technology and technique has advanced somewhat in the pharmaceutical industry, Mampaso says, allowing the weight of medications packaging to reduce by 23% and leading to one in four medicines qualifying for an 'eco-design' sticker – where the amount of paper and cardboard is reduced by shrinking the box and narrowing margins on the prospectus, recycled paper, card and plastic used, and plastic consumption cut by putting the pills closer together in blister packs.
Once the packaging is cleaned of all traces of chemicals, it is recycled in the relevant paper, card, glass and plastic channels, but medications themselves deposited are destroyed, since it is against the law for them to be reused, even if only one pill is missing from the box.
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