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Antigonish pharmacy tackles waste with reusable glass vials
CBC
When Alicia and Miranda Teasdale decided to move home from Alberta to Antigonish, N.S., they had one big priority: open a drug store that would make their community think differently about waste.
The sisters just launched the Teasdale Apothecary, which offers reusable glass vials for prescriptions. While they're being used in some pharmacies in other parts of Canada, the Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia believes the Teasdale Apothecary is the first to try the system in Nova Scotia.
Miranda Teasdale, who is a pharmacist, said she can't believe the amount of waste pharmacies produce.
"Unfortunately, we are a huge contributor to plastic waste in the environment," she said. "Even though [plastic vials] are plastic and they say they're recyclable, a lot of the time they aren't recycled."
Patients at the pharmacy have an option. They can use plastic vials from an environmentally–friendly Canadian company, or opt into the bottle program. They pay a deposit of $2 or $3 depending on the size of the jar.
When they finish their prescription, they're given instructions on how to clean it.
"When they return it to the pharmacy, we use a really high medical grade sanitizer on the bottle, to make sure it's completely safe to reuse," said Teasdale. "We'll exchange it with them, so they can continue to get their prescriptions in the glass bottles."
The sisters hope the glass vials become a new standard in the industry.
Teasdale said over time, their expenses should go down because the pharmacy won't have to keep restocking plastic containers.
"The thing with glass, it can be infinite as long as it's handled properly and cleaned properly, which is really impactful when you look at prescriptions that people take every month and they're on, say, five or six or more medications that they're getting refilled monthly over the course of several years, that can add up to a lot of waste diverted from the landfill," she said,.
The Apothecary is the result of a dream between the sisters.
When the pandemic began, Alicia Teasdale was in Edmonton and working as the director of a sexual assault centre. As lockdowns dragged on, the sisters became homesick, and decided to speed up their long-term plan to move home.
Alicia Teasdale pitched her idea to open the drug store with the environmentally–friendly mandate. Just one year later, their father discovered a vacant building listed for sale in Antigonish, and the Teasdales made the leap.
"We're here a lot sooner than we planned but it worked out in our favour," said Alicia.