Spain broadens pharmaceutical waste recycling while urging local recycling participation

SIGRE, the Spanish consortium for pharmaceutical waste management, released its 2024 Sustainability Report, highlighting the sector’s progress toward a circular economy. The report notes the upcoming expansion of the SIGRE system on 1 January 2025 to include commercial and industrial medication packaging waste, alongside household drug residues. In 2024, around 500 million medication packages were placed on the market, achieving a more than 25 % reduction in package weight and a 67.37 % recycling rate for collected materials. Over 22 200 pharmacies served as collection points, with each Spanish citizen depositing an average of 105.6 g of empty or residual‑containing packaging, a 4.3 % rise from the previous year. Miguel Vega, SIGRE’s director general, said the consortium “has become a reference in pharmaceutical waste management and a model of sector‑wide cooperation for the environment.”

In the city of Segovia, the president of the local Environmental Consortium observed that residents demonstrate higher recycling awareness than visitors and called on citizens to cooperate further to improve the efficiency of the recycling process.