Environmental impact of medicine waste

Medicine waste facts

In Scotland, an estimated 1 in 10 unused medicines are incinerated, this costs £700 per tonne annually or the CO2 equivalence of 6000 car journeys.
80% of NHS carbon footprint is due to prescribing.

A wasted inhaler has the highest carbon footprint of all.
Lothian as a population has 5% (55,000) people diagnosed with asthma and 2% (18000) with COPD, most of whom are prescribed inhalers.
Metered dose inhalers contain fluorinated greenhouse gases which are thousands of times more damaging to environment than CO2.
Metered dose inhalers contribute to 3.1% of UK health service carbon footprint double that of anaesthetic gases.
Reliever metered dose inhalers (usually blue) drive up 70% of greenhouse gas emissions from inhalers in the UK with 83% of prescriptions going to patients overusing.
The release of propellant gases contributes to climate change, impacting human health through extreme weather, air quality issues and accelerating pollution related illnesses including respiratory conditions.

ONE reliever inhaler has a carbon footprint of 28kg of CO2. That's equivalent to driving 175 miles from Haddington to Inverness.

Please ensure you return your inhaler waste (even if it has been used) to your community pharmacy to help reduce the effect on the environment.

Used MDI Inhalers still contain gases that leak into atmosphere if put into landfill so are very harmful to the environment.
Inhalers that are returned to community pharmacies are incinerated and have the harmful gases destroyed.
Waste accumulation of inhalers in landfill means long lasting waste contributing to pollution by chemicals leaking into soil and water systems and the atmosphere.