Recycling & Producer Responsibility
Pilot Take-Back Program for Unwanted and Expired Household Pharmaceuticals
- By Jim Todd of Earth Share organization Washington Citizens for Resource Conservation
Have you ever wondered what to do with those unwanted pharmaceuticals in your medicine cabinet? Washington Citizens for Resource Conservation (WCRC), a Seattle-based Earth Share organization, has a grant from The Russell Family Foundation to help design and conduct a pilot program that will make unwanted pharmaceuticals as easy to return as they are to purchase. The concept of the pilot project is simple. Any and all unwanted household pharmaceuticals could be taken back to a local pharmacy. The participating pharmacies would accept pharmaceuticals during their regular business hours in a mailbox style slot near the pharmacy counter.
The purpose of the pilot take-back project is to demonstrate that the collection of household unwanted medicines at retail pharmacies is viable and can help reduce the potentially damaging environmental and health impacts of unsafe disposal practices in the Puget Sound area. WCRC is developing the pilot in collaboration with a coalition of diverse governmental and private organizations.
There is a growing awareness that pharmaceuticals are detectable at low levels in streams, lakes and other ground and surface waters in the Puget Sound environment. Unused pharmaceuticals enter streams and Puget Sound in part because people have few safe and convenient disposal options. To prevent accidental poisonings, public health officials often direct consumers to flush unwanted drugs down the toilet. From there the pharmaceuticals pass through wastewater treatment plants and into our streams and waterways. There are also concerns about the unsecured disposal of pharmaceuticals to the garbage as the discarded drugs can become targets of drug users and leachate from landfills may be discharged to water bodies via treatment plants or ground water.
While so far there is no direct evidence of adverse human health effects due to the presence of pharmaceuticals in water, there is much concern about what is not known. Data are available for less than 1% of human pharmaceuticals. Scientists have linked pharmaceutical wastes in surface waters to disturbing ecosystem changes and suspect that organic contaminants in the water from pharmaceuticals have the potential to disrupt the endocrine systems of hundreds of freshwater, estuarine and marine species as well as humans. Clearly, there is a need to address this problem by developing convenient and safe drop-off options for residents.
The set-up costs for the pilot project will be funded by public agencies and participating private companies. The long-term goal is to obtain funding for a permanent collection program from the pharmaceutical industry, in keeping with the philosophy of product stewardship and shared responsibility. Under this philosophy, local governments and taxpayers would not have to subsidize all of the disposal costs associated with healthcare. The manufacturers of pharmaceuticals would be responsible for the stewardship of their products on behalf of the communities they serve and the environment on which those communities depend for their health and well-being.
Posted in the November 2005 Earth Page
Talking About Producer Responsibility
- submitted by Suellen Mele from ESW organization Washington Citizens for Resource Conservation (WCRC)
I've spent considerable time over the last 15 years thinking about and working in the field of recycling. WCRC has an even longer history in the field. It was born out of efforts in the late 70's - unfortunately unsuccessful - to pass a state bottle bill. It grew into an organization that advocated - this time more successfully - for residential and business recycling programs throughout the state. It might be tempting to declare success and go home. But a deeper look into the current situation says otherwise.
We have still not achieved Washington's 50% recycling goal, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. Much that we count as recycled is actually "downcycled." Writing paper recycled into tissues will, after one more use, go into the landfill or incinerator. Plastic containers made into park benches, after one more use (albeit a longer one), are destined for the same fate. Getting one more use from a material is good, but it's not good enough. And many products contain toxics, making recycling more challenging and risky. Not just products like pesticides and antifreeze, but also products like the cushions we sit on and the cell phones we use.
Why aren't more materials in products used over and over again? And why aren't more products recyclable? A big part of the answer is simply this: They aren't designed to be.
Many of us who work in recycling have concentrated on what to do with a product once it is discarded. Now, we are learning that we need to look upstream to the start of the product's life, to its design.
That's a big reason WCRC is focusing on "extended producer responsibility." In this approach, manufacturers are responsible for financing and arranging safe and convenient recycling programs for their products at end-of-life. This creates a financial incentive for manufacturers to design products that are less toxic and easier to recycle.
In various parts of the world, producer responsibility efforts are addressing cars, rechargeable batteries, packaging, beverage containers, carpets, mercury switches, electronic equipment, paint, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and more.
Here in Washington, WCRC is advocating for producer responsibility for electronics such as computers, televisions and cell phones. These products contain valuable resources that can be recovered through recycling. They also contain lead, mercury, brominated flame retardants and other toxic substances.
Last summer, Hewlett Packard and Office Depot teamed up on a seven-week nationwide project to collect and recycle computers, TVs, and other electronic equipment. This pilot project was a significant experiment in producer responsibility. HP and Office Depot financed the program - there were no charges to the customer. This is how WCRC thinks product takeback should be financed - by producers as a regular part of the cost of doing business. The pilot project also demonstrated how a manufacturer and retailer could collaborate to offer a convenient, easy-to-use program. The results? 425,000 items weighing 5,100 tons were collected in 7 weeks.
Governments, recycling companies, haulers and others have worked hard to make recycling successful. We citizens have done our part, too. But we can't change the design of products. It's time for manufacturers to step up to the plate. In the long run, it will be the only way recycling will truly succeed.
Posted in the January 2005 Earth Page