Surely no one, or almost no one, when diluting a cold medicine in half a glass of water, pouring a cough syrup into its dispenser, taking a pill for a headache or another to control blood pressure, pays attention to the sachet, the bottle or the blister that contains them, and on the box only to see the name and, at most, the expiration date.
But, it is very possible that this same container has some improvement incorporated into its design that allows it to be easier to recycle when it has relieved or cured us. That is, it will have been eco-designed and will be ready to integrate the materials with which it is made into the circular economy.
Something that is worth looking at just this week when the European Waste Prevention Week is celebrated.
one in three
In fact, one in every three medicine containers of the 1.5 billion that are put on the market annually in Spain has eco-design improvements integrated into its packaging, according to data from Sigre, the non-profit entity created by the pharmaceutical sector to the correct management of household medicine waste. Said the same in other figures: some environmental improvement has been applied to the packaging of 500 million units of drugs. Because, with the eight three-year waste prevention and eco-design plans prepared by Sigre since 2000, the 315 pharmaceutical companies integrated into its system have applied, during the 2021-2023 three-year period alone, 749 eco-design measures that have allowed, among other achievements, environmental, saving 2,800 tons of raw materials.
That includes less cardboard, less paper, less plastic for the blister packs, less ink, less glass in the bottles, in short, less plastic or metal for the tubes. And in the current PEPE 2024-2028, the objective is to increase the initiatives by 5% and reduce the average weight of pharmaceutical packaging between 1 and 1.5%.
Each one his mission
If the mission of a medicine is to cure or alleviate a health problem, the purpose of the packaging is to ensure that the medicine reaches the patient in perfect condition to fulfill that objective. In the words of the technical director of Sigre, Mª José Blázquez, “it must fulfill five functions: protect the medicine against external factors, such as humidity or breakage; appropriate presentation, so that it can be identified by the patient; information that guarantees that it is that medication and not another. In addition, it must allow optimal dosing and administration.
For all this, and because it must meet the requirements required by health regulations, “when making modifications to the packaging, any technical limitations that may exist must be taken into account. Because, when a medication is approved, everything is approved, container and medication. So, if a modification is proposed, it also has to be approved.
Blázquez gives as an example of a possible limitation “the identification of the product with a Braille system for blind people, which is mandatory. In order for it to be read by them, the packaging cardboard must have a certain thickness because with a lower weight the dots may not have enough relief to be read well. So, if both environmentally and economically it would be a possibility, for the identification function it is not applicable.
Other measures of the many possible that are proposed, and carried out, are the reduction of the printed surface, which saves ink and the use of ecological inks, reduction in the thickness of ointment tubes and similar, redesign of bottles, increasing the capacity of the blister packs or reduce their size, adapt the cases to the new size of the containers that contain the medicines. All of this affects the manufacturing and packaging phase of medicines. “Despite these limitations, the efforts of the laboratories have made it possible for all prevention plans to meet the established objectives,” adds Blázquez.
For this reason, as well as the development of the medicines themselves, that of the containers and cases in which they are contained, requires an important phase of research first, and development later, before implementing measures aimed at reducing their environmental impact, both in the manufacturing and packaging phase, in its transportation and distribution, and at the end of useful life and the return of raw materials to the economic cycle.
Ecodesign from start to finish
That, which is ultimately ecodesign, the systematic integration of environmental aspects in the conception of a product, the entire life cycle of products, globally, determines 80% of the environmental impacts of the product.
For this reason, “all inputs to the process must be taken into account, because emissions are generated and water, energy and raw materials are consumed in all of them,” says Blázquez. Therefore, to reduce the ecological footprint of a product, the following stages, such as distribution, are also taken into account. Once they leave the laboratory, “in logistics you can also act, to adapt the large boxes to the new sizes, they can fit more, or weigh less, and therefore optimize transportation, consume less fuel, etc.”
The end-of-life, recycling phase, in which Sigre once again plays a leading role, begins when all those leftover or expired medications reach the white container in the pharmacies. But that’s another story.