How To Recycle Blister Packs & Medicine Packaging In The UK
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Wondering how to recycle blister packs and medicine packaging in the UK for free. I’ve done some digging and here’s what I’ve found.
I’ve written a lot about recycling. From how to recycle bras to how to recycle glasses and everything in between! And recently a few readers have asked me about how to recycle medicine packaging. Specifically, the plastic blister packs that most medicines are dispensed in.
Medicine packs are tricky. Whilst cardboard boxes are easily recycled at home, the plastic and foil packs generally aren’t recyclable at home. If you’re wondering why this is and where we can recycle them, then I’ve got all the current details.
The PVC Problem
The reason medicine packs can’t be recycled at home is down to how they are made. Pharmaceuticals tend to be packaged in plastic that’s made from polyvinyl chloride – more commonly known as PVC.
PVC is used to provide a barrier to moisture, oxygen, light and contaminants from interfering with your medicine – something that other plastics can’t do. Despite these important benefits, PVC is not easily recyclable.
This is because recycling PVC can release toxic chemicals, such as hydrochloric acid. This can be incredibly harmful to recycling workers. As the acid is very caustic, it can damage recycling machinery. As such, most standard recycling plants won’t touch PVC.
This doesn’t mean that PVC can’t be recycled. It just has to be recycled in a very specific way that isn’t readily available to householders.
The Waste Problem
Given that millions of these packs are used daily across the globe, the waste adds up quickly. One Moral Fibres reader shared with me the packaging their household regularly uses, and it’s no small amount:
It’s little wonder that there is a need for effective and easily accessible ways to recycle blister packs. So what is the current situation in the UK?
How To Recycle Blister Packs & Medicine Packaging In The UK
Here are the current free ways to recycle blister packs in the UK:
Boots
First up, is Boots. When I initially wrote this article in August 2024, Boots was only offering blister pack recycling services in 100 stores in the South East of England. This was a trial, with plans to roll the scheme out further in 2025.
True to their words, Boots has rolled out the scheme further this year. You can now recycle your plastic medicine packs in over 800 Boots stores nationwide. I spotted the bank in the Boots store in Edinburgh’s St James Quarter a few weeks ago, so I can confirm these banks are now widespread.
Sadly it’s frustratingly convoluted to recycle your packaging, in a move the cynic in me suspects is to stop stores from being inundated with boxes and bags of empty medicine packs.
You first have to join the Boots Advantage Card scheme (the Boots’ loyalty club). Then you have to install the free Recycle at Boots app on your smartphone – available on Apple and Google Play.
Once you’ve installed it, you then need to create a Scan2Recycle account on the app, which requires A LOT of personal information. Basically, if you don’t have a smartphone or don’t want to hand over your personal details then you can’t access the recycling scheme.
Once you’ve signed up, there’s more work. You have to take a photo of each individual packet you want to recycle. Yes. A photo of each item by itself. Each packet has to be approved by Scan2Recycle. Once you have 15 approved items you can then take them to your nearest participating Boots store.
As a reward for all of the faff, you get a voucher that gives you 150 Boot Advantage Card points when you spend £10 in-store. Note that you have to spend £10 in a single transaction within 3 days of receiving the voucher, and you can only access a maximum of 8 rewards per account in a calendar month.
Some readers have emailed to ask if you can just put empty packs in the Boots recycling bin without scanning them or being signed up to the scheme. I messaged Boots in May 2025 and their reply was clear that all pill packets need to be logged through the Scan2Recycle app. I have asked what happens to packs that are placed in the recycling bin without being scanned – I will update here if I hear back.
Superdrug
The only other free scheme I’ve found in the UK is Superdrug. Superdrug advertises on their site that their pharmacies take blister packs for recycling. However, readers have told me that they have been unable to access the scheme at their local stores.
I reached out to Superdrug in August 2024 to find out more. They told me that some (not all) Superdrug pharmacies recycle blister packs. They recommend using the Superdrug store finder to search for a store near you, and to check the services offered within each store.
This sounded promising. Yet when I looked there was no way to filter which stores offer medicine packaging recycling.
I reached out again to Superdrug, and their advice is to use the filter and select pharmacy. This is because only Superdrug pharmacies provide the recycling scheme.
However, it’s not that easy. Even if you do have a local Superdrug pharmacy, don’t assume they will take your packaging. Superdrug advised me that you should also call the pharmacy directly to check that they run the recycling scheme before making a trip.
It’s not clear how many stores offer the scheme, and at the moment it all seems quite piecemeal. However, Superdrug pointed out that they are hoping to expand the scheme when possible.
If you are lucky enough to have a Superdrug pharmacy near you that takes empty packaging, then Superdrug pointed out one major caveat to me.
Superdrug said: “We would like to advise you that this recycling scheme is intended for members of the public to drop off their own household consumption of used medicine blister packets. We do occasionally have instances where communities have collected and dropped back large numbers of bags/boxes to our participating Superdrug pharmacies all in one go. We have not been able to accommodate these volumes due to health and safety reasons and the storage capabilities within our pharmacies.”
Spurt
Some organisations such as Terracycle and MY Recycling offer boxes that anyone can buy that you can fill with medicine packs and return them for specialist recycling. However, it is prohibitively expensive for the average person to buy one of these boxes – coming in at over £100 a time.
Given the cost of these boxes, and the lack of easy access free recycling options, some communities have come together to overcome these barriers.
Spurt, for example, is a citizen-led recycling project in the Wiltshire and Hampshire area – with plans to expand.
Led entirely by volunteers, they find organisations that would be willing to pay the initial fee for a specialist recycling box from MY Recycling. The volunteers then hold local blister pack collection events – taking in any empty packs in exchange for a small donation towards the cost of the next box. This means that each group can be self-sustaining, as the funds raised go towards buying a new recycling box when the current box is full.
If you’d like to set up a recycling group in your local area, then Spurt can give you a lot of free help, and funding to get you started with your initial recycling box. Contact them at [email protected] to find out more.
At Home In West Sussex
Finally, if you happen to live in West Sussex then lucky you! You can now recycle blister packs in your home recycling bin, and the council will collect them for recycling. Alternatively, if you know of anyone that lives in West Sussex then they might let you recycle your packs in their bin if you ask them nicely!
I haven’t been able to find any other local authorities in the UK that offer this service, so if yours does please do let me know. I’d love to see this service offered across the country.
Can’t Medicines Be Packaged In Other Materials?
Given the problems with PVC, you may well be wondering if medicines can be packaged in more sustainable packaging, such as glass, or recyclable plastic bottles.
The reason these bottles are no longer used is because of patient safety. Studies on the links between medicine packaging and poisoning have found that because of the inconvenience and longer time required to remove the tablets from the packaging, blister packs significantly reduce the number of tablets that adults with self-poisonings can readily swallow.
What If You Don’t Have Access To A Recycling Scheme?
As you can see, the current picture isn’t great. The Boots scheme is complicated to access and is closed to anyone without a smartphone. In Superdrug’s case, the information isn’t readily available online. You will have to do some ringing around to find a pharmacy that may take your medicine packs.
I’ll update this post as and when things change. My hope is that Boots can make their scheme easier and more inclusive to access and that Superdrug can make the process easier for people who want to recycle. I’d also love to see more pharmacies, especially other big pharmacy chains being able to offer schemes to recycle blister packs.
In the meantime, if you don’t have access to a medicine packaging recycling scheme, don’t feel guilty when you need to take medications. If you have a chronic health condition, a short-term illness, or heck, even a one-off headache then don’t ever feel guilty or let anyone make you feel guilty for taking the medication that you need to take.
Demonising plastic when it’s necessary isn’t healthy or productive – so let’s focus on the things we can change – and not the areas, such as healthcare, where plastic is essential.
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I’m a bit surprised not to see any mention of *manufacturers* in this context. Surely those who produce or import stuff in this sort of packaging have some responsibility for disposing of it, and of course that should involve recycling. Perhaps Wendy could contact some of them to gauge their reaction to the suggestion that it’s their problem, at least in part …
Thanks for the comment Johnny. There is mention of this in the post under the heading “Can’t Medicines Be Packaged In Other Materials?”. I’d recommend giving that section a read. But yes, I do agree that manufacturers should take some responsibility when it comes to recycling. The best thing we can all do is individually email the pharmaceutical companies we all rely on and ask if them about recycling. Collective ‘pester power’ voices are more likely to have an effect than an email from one person (me), and I sadly don’t have the resources to email every pharmaceutical company.
I and my wife generate 70+ sleeves per month and the nearest Boots/Superdrug are around trip of 20 miles. So I spoke to Age UK locally who have over 500 over 50’s visitors each week. Due to multiple medications prescribed for many and varied medical conditions may generate may generate 17,000 sleeves in a year excluding any staff. They maybe willing to site collection boxes on their site but the cost of the collection boxes would exceed £2k per year. Any suggestions or just continue to add to land fill?
Hi Jim, that’s definitely frustrating. I’d recommend getting in touch with Spurt. It’s a great community led solution.
Thank you for this summary. I had looked at Superdrug and Boots, with the result that there is no Superdrug near me that will accept blister packs, and, as you say, Boots make it extremely complicated to recycle. I really want to help reduce waste, but Boots have made it extremely difficult – I now have a bag of around 100 blister packs, and there is no way I am going to photograph each one individually and complete a form for it!
Like batteries, we may need legislation to make companies that sell blister packs to take them back in for recycling. At scale, this would reduce the costs for them, but also majorly contribute to reducing one-time plastics and landfill.
My pleasure, and I agree Matthew, that’s a good idea!
I am so glad that you’re highlighting that the Boots scheme is complicated and not accessible to everyone. It’s paradoxical giving that the majority of medications are from elderly that don’t have the means or the physical ability to use that scheme. I’ve tried it last week and already given up. I don’t shop in Boots. I wasn’t happy signing for a point card that I don’t need. Nowhere was it indicated that I had to scan every blister pack. I just assumed they wanted one picture and that I would be asked for the number of packs once approved. I waited 2 days, no approval in sight so I deleted the whole thing. Saved me having to plan a trip just for that (I’m far away from the shop). It’s not lost on me that the points are to drive more business for Boots by getting us to buy more plastic toiletries.
Thanks Grace! Yes, it’s so frustrating. Some readers have told me that they are just putting the packets in the Boots recycling bin without scanning them. I’ll need to check with Boots that these ones will actually get recycled as I’m not certain, and wouldn’t want to encourage that if it meant they would all just end up in landfill.
I thought of doing that but I wondered if it would get recycled too. The scanning makes every pack accounted for so what happens to the rest when it gets sorted? Is it sent to landfill just on principle? Thank you for looking into all of this.
Hi, Zero Waste Bags now do Bags (beats Terracycle’s bigger and more expensive boxes). There are 3 different sizes. Seeing as Boots don’t recycle blister packs in my area, I just bought the smallest bag to try (£25). Returning the bags is free.
Thanks for the recommendation Vanessa – much appreciated!
Useful information, unfortunately, published claims by Superdrug and Boots don’t reflect reality. Very limited coverage by Superdrug – are there any operational sites? Boots requires a scanning and points process – a time consuming exercise that won’t encourage recycling.
The technical difficulties are understood but companies shouldn’t make claims that are not credible or demonstrably working. The pursuit of corporate social responsibility includes misleading (lying?) with a greenwashing coating.
Blister packs are still going in the bin!
I know David, it’s so incredibly frustrating. I’ve just updated the post today with my thoughts on the Boots scheme, but I’ve also got details of a community-led recycling scheme that you might be interested to hear about. They’re just in the south of England just now, but are looking for other communities around the UK to join them.
Thank you so much for this – I get through several blister packs a month so this is great info! I’ve found a Boots near(ish) me that the site says will take them, so I’ll give that a to. Hopefully if enough of us in the area use the scheme they’ll roll it out further
That’s brilliant Rhiannon! And fingers crossed – it would be so good to see Boots roll out the scheme nationwide!
Email all of the pharmacy chains and ask them to implement recycling. I have!
I have also contacted the supermarkets and my local hospitals.
Honestly I think that everywhere you can get blister packets from should offer recycling for them — like batteries.
Good call Melissa! And definitely agree on that, it always feels so wasteful to have to put them in the bin.
Hi Wendy – Thanks for this update. It is brilliant. I just wanted to let you know that where I live in West Sussex we can recycle our blister packs in the normal kerbside recycling. We are lucky enough to have mixed materials recycling here and therefore are able to add a few more things in. I know we are a rarity – I keep meaning to find out which other counties have this. Also at the vet I work at we collect the blister packs and send to Terracycle. Thanks writing these brilliant articles. I will be sharing this one.
Thanks so much for this info Heidi! Another reader also let me know about West Sussex scheme – that’s amazing to hear that’s available to you. I have tried to find out which out local authorities do the same but with 317 local authorities, it’s too big a job for me! I hope that other readers who have schemes in their local area can let me know here. And great to hear about the vets too. Do they collect any blister packs or just ones that were prescribed for pets?