Has Honeywell produced a fully recyclable blister pack?

Pharmaceutical packaging has achieved what performance materials and technologies producer Honeywell has described as ‘a new milestone’ due to technical recyclability recognition form US-based recycler TerraCycle.

TerraCycle has recognised Honeywell’s Aclar range of barrier film blisters as technically recyclable for PVC and PETG-based blisters.

Technical recyclability is the first step of a journey toward practical recyclability which may enable a second, downstream life for products that have traditionally been seen as difficult to recycle.

Aclar film forms part of Honeywell’s Life Sciences portfolio alongside the Aclar Edge bottles, which help protect medicines by providing the moisture barrier protection needed for drug stability and preserving the efficacy of medicines.TerraCycle works alongside brands, retailers and other stakeholders to help develop recycling solutions for waste streams that are not typically curbside recyclable. This recognition provides a methodology for multi-layer materials like pharmaceutical blister packaging to be recycled.

A common challenge faced by pharmaceutical manufacturers and consumers is that traditional recycling processes can only handle less complex, monolayer structures and materials. This leads to waste from multi-layer primary pharmaceutical barrier packaging materials being often sent to landfills or incinerated, unable to be recycled within existing municipal recycle streams.

As a result, pharmaceutical manufacturers have started an aggressive journey to improve their environmental footprint at the request of their customers. They are making strong commitments to carbon neutrality, PVC-free packaging and packaging material reduction. 

The process developed to reclaim material from used multi-layer Aclar film blisters could reduce the environmental footprint of manufcturers with an opportunity to reduce waste and divert materials from landfill.

It is anticipated that the reclaimed material will be used downstream for non-pharmaceutical products as current regulations do not allow for recycled material to be used for primary drug packaging.

The technical recyclability for Aclar film blisters is currently at lab-scale, with Honeywell and TerraCycle preparing to demonstrate the process within a real-world scenario by developing separation processes to enable post-patient collection and recovery of healthcare packaging.