Burwood Neighbourhood House No Longer Accepts Blister Packs for Recycling

As of Term 4 2025, Burwood Neighbourhood House no longer accepts medicine blister packs. After speaking with Pharmacycle, the blister pack recycling company, we have discovered that the practice of bringing a large bag into Chemist Warehouse undermines the intended economic purpose of the recycling initiative. Let me explain:

Pharmacycle sells the recycling boxes to Chemist Warehouse at $192.50 per box. Though this seems to be a steep price for a mere cardboard box, it also covers each box’s shipping and operational recycling costs. From Chemist Warehouse’s point of view, the justification for spending this $192.50 is the possibility for that box to attract customers.

Take a hypothetical person who lives 500m away from an Amcal, and 600m away from a Chemist Warehouse. Chemist Warehouse has a blister pack recycling box, while Amcal doesn't. That person is likely to walk the extra 100m so that they can feel that they have responsibly discarded their medicine blister pack. While dropping their blister packs, they are also likely to buy products at Chemist Warehouse.

Now take someone who walks in with a several garbage bag of blister packs, like an employee or volunteer from a community centre or aged care facility. When they dump the garbage bag into the $192.50 recycling box, gets filled to the brim in one go, requiring Chemist Warehouse to purchase another. 

Additionally, if everybody were to leave their blister packs at facilities like ours instead of taking them to Chemist Warehouse themselves, none of them would enter that pharmacy and potentially buy products. If Chemist Warehouse were to lose the ‘honeypot’ economic value of having/displaying the recycling boxes, they would have no reason to continue participating in the program.

Recycling initiatives can be quite fragile and have collapsed before, like how Victoria's 1980s Cash for Cans scheme collapsed in 1989, not returning until 2023. Even today, a Western Australian regional FOGO scheme is on the verge of collapse.

For this reason, to support the blister pack recycling initiative, Burwood Neighbourhood House will no longer accept medicine blister packs. Instead, we recommend that you collect them yourself, and then bring them with you next time you are at Chemist Warehouse to fill a prescription or buy medicines. And to support the initiative, maybe buy something while you’re there. 

The Earth will thank you!

Note: Burwood Neighbourhood House do still accept cans and plastic bottles. Read more about ithere.