Recycling cold packs, insulated boxes etc. I get with mail-order pharmacy shipments

Treatment Insulin
1

There must be a lot of insulin users who get their stuff from the mail-order pharmacies (it’s the only way I can get 3 months at a time) along with massive quantities of cold-packs and styrofoam insulated boxes.

I can justify keeping one styrofoam box around along with some cold packs in the freezer in case I have to bug out and take insulin with me into warm weather. Heck, it can come in handy for summer picnics too!

But I cannot justify keeping a couple years worth of this packaging around.

Is there any innovative way to recycle this cold packaging other than hauling it to the dump?

2

I share mine with family and friends. But in the end it does end up in th trash,sadly. Nancy50

3

We’ve gotten a lot of cold packaging from medications other than insulin too. Do you know anyone who fishes or do you have any bait shops in the area? We’ve given them for that purpose and it seemed to work well.

4

Styrofoam is the (or yet another) bane of mother earth. I get these packages too and encourage all efforts to innovate another way to do these shipments.
Edit: By which I mean, no plastic!

5

Odd coincidence. Discussion of cold packs. I was getting stuff out of my daughters freezer and she has all the white bags in the freezer. Iasked what they were, she works for Pharma company and as part of the approval process they have to test ship the meds under all conditions to make sure the quality is the same. They use the packs to ship temperature sensitive drugs. Although this is all testing, so the bags cannot be used in another test so they are discarded So at least the employees do take them home and use in the freezers and coolers.

Then I logged on to this site and there was a thread about what to do with cold packing material. She has more cold packs than food in her freezer.

I don’t use insulin, my daughter is not a diabetic.

6

You can check with local food banks, schools, daycare programs, etc… I’m sure a lot of people would be happy to have them. Also, you could list the cold packs as a freebie on Craigslist.

Personally, we save styrofoam and other packing materials to use as insulation in diy building projects around the farm, but I know that’s not a practical use for most.

7

Yes, elementary schools for when bumps and bruises happen at school. Our school was always in need of them.