USA – Sustainable healthcare company Cabinet Health is launching its first-ever nationwide pill bottle recycling program to address the pharmaceutical plastic waste crisis.
Under the initiative, consumers can request a free recycling bag from the company and ship their empty and used plastic pill bottles to it. Consumers must remove their personal details from the packaging before shipping.
Once the shipment reaches Cabinet Health, the company will responsibly recycle the medicine bottles and package them or will upcycle them into an ‘evolving art sculpture’, with the help of interdisciplinary artist Kellie Gillespie.
The launch of the program comes at a time when the pharmaceutical industry is a significant contributor to plastic waste, and the issue with medicines looms large.
According to Cabinet Health, approximately 165 billion plastic pill bottles enter oceans, waterways and landfills each year, while only about 5% of the plastic waste generated each year in the United States is recycled.
Amber pharmacy pill containers, which make up the majority of all plastic pill containers in the United States, are generally not accepted by curbside recycling programs at all, contributing the same amount of waste roughly equivalent to filling more than 3,300 Olympic swimming pools.
Cabinet Health co-founder and president Russell Gong said: “Pharmaceutical plastic waste remains an environmental issue, and Cabinet Health is committed to not only raising awareness but to providing tangible solutions to address it.
“And this extends beyond our environment to human health, as we are eliminating eventual consumption of microplastics from our bodies.
“We are proud to partner with sculptural artist and mental health activist Kellie Gillespie to support her next piece of artwork that will live on well beyond the norm of a single-use plastic bottle.”
With the program and respective artwork to follow, Cabinet Health’s National Recycling Program allows Kellie to transform American pill bottle waste into an extraordinary art installation made entirely of reused items commonly discarded by society.
Through this initiative, the company intends to spread awareness of the current plastic waste crisis while also providing convenient and accessible opportunities for people to help minimize their respective plastic waste.
Cabinet Health, which bills itself as a sustainable healthcare company, has focused on the plastic pill bottle waste issue since its inception in 2018 through its refillable and compostable medicine system.
The company began offering customers over-the-counter medicines and supplements in glass bottles that can be reused over and over to fill medicines, as well as compostable pill packages made of earth-digestible materials that are also city-compost friendly.
The products are sold at online retailers The Grove and Amazon, as well as in-store at select CVS locations nationwide.
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