ECO RESPONSIBLE / TRANSPARENCY

PLA PILL BOXES, TO REDUCE OUR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Posted in 06/10/2022

The food contact

Not all containers are suitable for receiving food. A harmonized European regulation moreover the requirements applicable to materials which can come into contact with food (Regulation (CE) n°1935/2004). Santerra has obviously chosen containers (pill box, bottles, etc.) that respect this constraint and meet pharmacy quality grades.

Asset preservation

You should know that all the ingredients that go into the composition of our formulas generally have optimal use-by dates (DLUO) of 3 years. The packaging containing these ingredients must therefore at least guarantee the preservation of the products for 3 years.

Also, you should know that, even if we carefully select the ingredients for their stability (minimum degradation over time), some ingredients can be fragile and deteriorate when exposed to humidity, oxygen, heat and /or in the light. The combination of these four factors can, in some cases, prematurely degrade the quality of the ingredients. Santerra has chosen amber-colored pillboxes (opaque) to limit the exposure of ingredients to light. The closure of these pillboxes is done by screwing and compresses a sealing cap which preserves the contents of your box from humidity and contact with air (oxidation linked to oxygen). Our pill dispensers thus guarantee optimal preservation of the active ingredients.

The respect of environment

Responding to the first two criteria for choosing pill boxes is quite simple, but we had a dream (which we keep by the way): to offer a pill box with a “COMPOST HOME” label (compostable at home). Unfortunately, this is currently incompatible with the long-term preservation of active ingredients since a compost home pillbox degrades in 6 months. We have leads but still have to wait for innovation to bring us the solution.s pistes mais devons encore attendre que l’innovation nous apporte la solution.

Adding the environmental dimension to our packaging was a real challenge. We are obviously aware that by selling a product in packaging, we have a potentially negative impact on the environment. There is not and never will be the sale of a product with a positive carbon impact. On the other hand, we have set ourselves an objective, to advance the market by choosing “low carbon” pill dispensers!

Les piluliers sélectionnés par Santerra sont des piluliers en PLA (Acide Polylactique), un polymère bio-sourcé apparenté à du plastique. It comes from the fermentation of sugar cane. To explain things to you simply: we take sugar cane plants, grind them and put them in a fermenter (giant pressure cookers) in the presence of bacteria. The action of natural enzymes produced by bacteria allows the production of a polymer (PLA) which is purified and separated from plant waste resulting from fermentation to produce a Bio-Plastic or bio-sourced plastic.

In our opinion, PLA has many advantages: it is lighter than glass (lower loads transported), made from a “green” carbon source compared to plastics made from petrochemicals (PET, HDPE), can be recycled under certain conditions in composters which themselves allow the production of electricity or heat.

Finally, to simplify your life and promote sorting, all the parts that make up the pillboxes are recyclable and put in the sorting bin:

• The pill box that allows products to be transported and protected from light
• The aluminum cap to close the pill box
• The operculum in the capsule to ensure airtightness and humidity
• The sleeve on the outside which serves as a saddle and guarantees that the box has not been opened)

We avoid as much as possible the mixing of materials, which cannot be recycled. Take the example of blisters that combine plastic and aluminum: they cannot be recycled and will often be buried.

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