Plastic is a huge contributor to the millions of tons of waste going to landfills each year. And a major amount of this plastic comes from product packaging. About 33.6 million tons are discarded yearly and only 6.5 percent of that is being recycled. Plastic only has one useful life after its initial use and then its down cycled and turned into a product that can no longer be recycled, such as piping and oil jug containers.

            There are 2.74 billion prescription bottles being shipped yearly. If 192 bottles fit in one cubic foot box, then there is a total of 14,270,832 being shipped in one year. If you were to line all those boxes up, one after another, then it would reach from California to New York to Portland, Maine. That distance totals about 2,702 miles. It takes 14,569 semis to ship all these prescription bottles in one year, using a total of about 297,306,250 gallons of fuel. That would be enough fuel to fill 450 Olympic size swimming pools. Now looking back to the 2.74 billion bottles that are being shipped yearly, that only makes up 5.2 percent of the total amount of medication packaging. And 49 percent of the all medication packaging is made out of plastic. 

             To accurately compare how much is being used now to how much it would be save if the bottles were recused, I focused on the number of Americans that are 65 years or older. There are about 43.1 million adults that fall under this age gap. That’s only 13.7 percent of the total United States population. However, Americans that are 65 years or older are consuming 40 percent of all yearly prescriptions. This age group is on an average of 16 prescription drugs each year. Looking at just one person one 16 prescriptions, getting a refill every month, that’s a total of 192 prescription bottles they are throwing away in just one year.  Refer to the bar graph above that compares the amount of prescription vials that are being used versus what it would be like if the prescription bottles where to be reused, within a 5 year span by adults 65 years or older.  As illustrated above, there is a massive decrease by simply reusing the bottles. If we keep using the same system, there would be about 38 billion prescription bottles being used however, if we just simply reused the bottles, replacing the bottle only once a year, 3.17 billion would be used. To ship the 38 billion prescription bottles it would take 4.13 billion gallons of fuel. And if reused the bottles it would only take 34.42 million gallons of fuel. 

 

The below image illustrates what prescription bottles look like currently. As you can see they are an overwhelming, chaotic design. This can be dangerous when you are dealing with multiple drugs or if there are multiple people in one household talking different medications.  For example, there is some sort of hierarchy but making not as important information important, and things that attention should be drawn too, are in very small text. Also the label wraps around the bottle so you have to constantly rotate the bottle to read the directions to even see whose pills they are for. 

After much research, having a reusable prescription bottles seemed like the more effective and efficient solution. At first, I was looking at different materials that could replace the plastic but because of the FDA guidelines, plastic seemed like the best material. The FDA states that the prescription packaging have to be light resistant, water resistant, durable so that if it is dropped it doesn’t break and it has to have a child proof cap. So with that information, having the packaging be the same just reusable each time you go to refill your medication seemed like the best option.

I chose to have the shape of the bottle be rectangular so that there would be a flat surface for the label to sit on, as well as it would fit better in a cabinet filled with multiple bottles. Having a rectangular bottle shape also eliminated the empty space when they are being shipped. I also applied the color coating idea, from the Target prescription bottle, to my design but instead of a band it would be the whole cap. That way there is a larger area that is the designated color and would be harder to miss. I redesigned the label with better hierarchy. Showing more emphasis to the more important information such as direction and patients name. I also design a couple different pattern choices with different color options as an example of what they would be able to customize their bottle to look like.

 

The customer would purchase the desired bottle online or there would be a couple choices at the pharmacy they would be able to pick from. Then they would bring their empty bottle to get it refilled. The pharmacy would refill it and apply the updated label. Then the customer would have that till it runs out and then they would bring it back to get refilled, and the cycle continues. To make sure that the cap stays child proof they would get switched every couple of times. The pharmacy would have a set of different colors so they they would match the color that was designated to that family member.