The loss of biodiversity or the contamination of ecosystems are some examples of the consequences that human activity can have on the environment. But this impact also has effects on people’s well-being, since the environment that surrounds us has a fundamental role in our body and, therefore, in our health.
According to data collected by the National Health and Environment Plan of the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that 24% of the global burden of disease and 23% of mortality can be attributed to environmental factors. This last percentage represents 12.6 million deaths each year. In Europe, the figure stands at 1.4 million victims. Of course, the conditions of each area (health, industrial, economic or social) and the circumstances in which people live determine the way in which the environment affects them. From the air we breathe or the water we drink, to our work environment or the building where we live, everything counts.
The conclusion is one: taking care of that environment means achieving our own well-being. This interrelationship between health and the environment is known as “One Health”: a multi-sector approach by WHO, designed to design and implement programs, policies, laws and research, in which multiple sectors communicate and They collaborate to achieve better public health outcomes. Among them, the pharmaceutical sector and its important action throughout the entire life cycle of the medicine to ensure that it not only cures people, but also the planet.
With this purpose, in 2001, SIGRE Medicamento y Medio Ambiente was born, the non-profit entity in charge of guaranteeing the correct environmental management of the packaging and remains of medicines generated in homes. It works with a double objective: environmental and socio-health. The first focuses on the collection of containers and remains of medicines through the SIGRE Points of pharmacies, which prevents them from being thrown into the trash or down the drain, managing them appropriately and responsibly to take care of the environment. The socio-health objective seeks to encourage periodic review of the medicine cabinet to avoid unnecessary accumulation of medications in homes and uncontrolled self-medication.
Throughout its twenty-two years of operation, SIGRE has emerged as the largest collaborative project in the pharmaceutical sector in Spain, promoted by the pharmaceutical industry with the collaboration of pharmacies and distribution. Pharmaceutical companies are responsible for innovating and applying eco-design measures in medicine packaging so that they become increasingly ecological and sustainable. Despite the difficulty in introducing improvements in such delicate products, each year around 500 million units of drugs are placed on the Spanish market with some environmental improvement in their packaging, which represents a third of the total. It has already been possible to reduce the average weight of packaging by 25%, with the consequent savings that this implies in emissions, energy and raw materials for production, transportation and storage.
For their part, pharmacists advise, inform and encourage citizens to deposit empty containers or those with medication remains at the SIGRE Point located in the pharmacy. Finally, pharmaceutical distribution provides a key element: reverse logistics, which allows the same channel to be used for collecting waste deposited at the SIGRE Point as for taking medicines to the pharmacy. This measure avoids 1,400 tons of CO2 emissions annually.
Today, thanks to the collaboration of citizens and the joint effort made by agents in the sector and health and environmental authorities, the habit of recycling medication waste has been implemented in the majority of homes in our country. country.
Expired, unused or poorly preserved medications, which due to temperature or light requirements have not been stored correctly, must be taken to the SIGRE Point of the pharmacy along with their containers, their box and their leaflet. This is something we have to do when we finish a treatment or, especially, after reviewing our first aid kit, a recommended activity every 6 or 12 months. It is important to keep medications with their original package insert and packaging to have the expiration date and storage conditions. In addition, we must keep the empty containers (bottles, blister packs, aerosols, blisters, etc.) and the cardboard boxes, as we finish the medications, to also take them to the SIGRE Point, since the containers always contain remains of the drug and the boxes make sorting easier.
Of course, not everything we purchase at the pharmacy must be deposited at the SIGRE Point. This is the case of needles, thermometers, healing materials, gauze, bandages, nutrition products, probes, x-rays, glucometers, batteries, chemical products or reagents, masks and Covid-19 tests.
Once collected at the pharmacy by the pharmaceutical distribution, the waste is transferred to its warehouses and deposited in watertight containers, located in a specially identified area of ??its facilities and separated from the pharmaceutical products. From there, authorized managers take them to the Medicine Containers and Waste Classification Plant located in Tudela de Duero (Valladolid), a pioneering facility and world reference in the treatment of this type of waste, where they go through different phases that separate the packaging and the remains of medicines they contain, through the application of the latest technologies.
On the one hand, the materials used in medicine packaging (cardboard, glass, plastics, aluminum, etc.) undergo different treatments in order to be recycled later. Almost 70% of these containers are recycled. On the other hand, the calorific value present in the remains of medicines and those containers that cannot be recycled is used to use them as a source of energy in industrial facilities, thus avoiding the consumption of fossil fuels.
All medication remains are destroyed, since, according to current regulations and the instructions on medication donations from the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS), the use of these waste is prohibited for new patients, both from our country as from other countries, due to the health risk posed by its reuse.
Thanks to this entire process and the joint effort of all those involved, SIGRE has prevented the felling of more than 197,000 trees, the equivalent of 11 parks in Madrid’s Retiro; has saved 371 million liters of water, enough to fill 148 Olympic swimming pools; has reduced energy consumption by 402 million kWh and saved 64.2 million liters of oil, contributing to the fight against climate change and the reduction of air pollution; and has avoided 54,440 tons of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
