CVS Is Switching to Aluminum Pill Bottles Leave a comment

CVS is altering up its over-the-counter tablet bottles, swapping out the plastic for aluminum.

For many years, capsules have sometimes come packaged in laborious plastic containers. Whereas technically recyclable, these containers are typically accepted in fewer locations than the way more broadly recyclable aluminum.

The retail pharmacy chain will quickly begin promoting generic, CVS-brand variations of some allergy and pain-relief medicines bottled up in aluminum.

“For OTC medicines, aluminum packaging gives a number of sensible and sustainability advantages,” wrote Mike Wier, vp of retailer manufacturers at CVS, in an e-mail to WIRED. “Like extra conventional packaging choices, aluminum gives a powerful barrier to assist preserve stability and shelf life.”

The primary aluminum choices begin with CVS’s value-size variations of allergy medicines and normal pain-relief merchandise. These are the larger containers of store-brand variations of medicines with the identical energetic substances as Allegra, Benadryl, Claritin, Zyrtec, Tylenol, and Advil. The brand new bottles are lighter than the plastic variations, however CVS has not responded to WIRED’s query about precisely how a lot they weigh. The capsules inside will keep the identical, even when they could make just a little extra noise bonking round now. CVS additionally says it’s not rising the costs of the bottles after the swap in supplies.

The aluminum bottles will certainly be extra recyclable, however Wier says individuals will nonetheless must do the identical issues to correctly recycle their aluminum bottles as their plastic ones, like eradicating the label and cap. (The caps on the aluminum bottles are the identical caps on the plastic ones, and so they don’t go in the identical bin as the bottom of the bottle.)

Recyclability looks as if an added bonus for CVS fairly than the primary objective of the retailer’s transfer to aluminum. The change comes as a part of a model refresh for CVS, just a little over a 12 months after the corporate downsized by shutting down 270 shops throughout the US. In statements on-line, CVS says it’s redesigning its branding to make discovering medicines simpler. It’s additionally probably a transfer to assist counter the notion individuals get when strolling right into a CVS and discovering almost the whole lot within the retailer locked up in an effort to stop shoplifting.

For now, the aluminum bottles can be found just for choose over-the-counter meds. CVS says it’s ready to see how its prospects reply earlier than increasing the aluminum bottles to extra medicines or utilizing them for prescription orders.