Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she will assess the merits of including medicine blister packs within the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework; and what discussions she has had with pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and waste management operators on establishing a nationally funded collection and recycling scheme for blister packs in community pharmacies and local recycling hubs.

Medicine blister packs are obligated under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging.

The scheme incentivises the establishment of takeback schemes, as producers do not incur EPR disposal fee obligations for packaging that is separately collected and recycled through these schemes.

Defra and PackUK regularly engage with the medical sector on difficult to recycle packaging.