Grundon recycling service have launched a nationwide collection and recycling service for metered dose inhalers. See the announcement here and details of the scheme here.
At present the scheme is not centrally funded. NHS Trusts and pharmacies can pay to have dedicated recycling containers for inhalers installed across their hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare settings.
Once collected, inhalers will be processed at Grundon’s specialist recycling facility in Oxfordshire, which is capable of handling more than 200,000 inhalers a day. The scheme captures the HFC gases from metered dose inhalers and repurposes them for use in the refrigeration industry. Plastic and aluminium from the inhaler devices will also be recycled.
Thanks for sharing! Good news.
Great news, but with money tight as always, what will incentivise trusts to pay for this? I worry that the NHS net zero targets may not be enough to drive widespread uptake. It looks like it is being funded by NHS Wales (https://www.gov.wales/inhaler-recycling-scheme-helping-reduce-nhs-wales…). Hopefully this, and the sites that do take it up in England, will help the infrastructure to develop, and then if/when NHS England start to fund it it can scale-up quickly.
Colleague from Greener Practice obtained the following guideline costs from Grundon:
1) Disposal of MDI - canister only - via 30L container £70 per container (inc supply)
2) Admin charge @ £64 per collection address - incs HWCN and all transportation docs.
3) transport @ £895 per std working day (based on a round robin collection of pharmacies)
4) Initial delivery charge for a container to each pharmacy - as transport rate
5) container supply charge @ £15
+ VAT
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