Morag Shaw is a coach specialising in behaviour and organisational change, building on her earlier career as an engineering manager in pharmaceutical manufacturing. This combination gives her a unique lens on the ETERNAL project’s sustainability goals — bridging human behaviour, system pressures, and the realities of medicine production and use. In this article, she shares emerging insights from her work exploring how to support greener prescribing and safer medicine disposal.
Across Europe, millions of doses of unused medicines are left in cupboards, thrown in the bin, or flushed away each year. This creates risks for ecosystems and for human health both from the direct impact of those medicines entering the environment and from the thousands of tonnes of chemical waste and spent solvents incinerated due to the processes that make the medicines we use – and don’t use. On paper, the solutions are simple: prescribe responsibly and dispose of medicines safely. Yet in practice, progress has been slow.
Through the ETERNAL Project, I’ve been exploring this question from two viewpionts – those of consumers and healthcare practitioners. The work is still very much in progress, but already some patterns are emerging.
From the responses we’ve gathered so far, it’s clear that most people know what they’re meant to do with unused medicines, even if they don’t universally put that into action. The barriers are different:
Convenience — if safe disposal isn’t easy, it often doesn’t happen.
Perceived impact — some people feel their own actions won’t make much difference and so don’t take the first step.
Awareness of importance — the environmental consequences are not widely understood.
The early picture suggests that this isn’t about ignorance, but about whether people feel their effort matters and whether systems make it easy to do the right thing. For example, one parent I spoke to said,
“I know what I should do but there is usually a queue at the pharmacy and I’m not going to stand in it, especially with two kids, just to return my old medicines.”
Does that ring true with you?
Healthcare professionals are key influencers in prescribing practices and in guiding patients on what to do with unused medicines. But the reality is that many are already working under intense pressure. Adding “one more thing” to their pile — however worthwhile — risks being unrealistic and producing fruit that will wither on the vine.
So perhaps the challenge isn’t about persuading healthcare practitioners to care about sustainability (many already do) but creating space and support so that they can act on it without it feeling like yet another burden. This could possibly be built into existing prescription systems that already flag cheaper medicines to include ‘greener’ alternatives, providing a nudge exactly at the time it is needed, or some quick digital resources or scripts to support conversations with patients.
This project isn’t about producing another report or campaign for the sake of it. It’s about listening, testing, and learning what actually works. Over the coming months, I’ll be continuing to gather insights from both consumers and practitioners and working with them to co-create small-scale pilots that can be tested in practice.
It feels important to acknowledge that I don’t have all the answers. But I do believe that if we can make sustainable behaviours feel easier, more meaningful, and more supported, change will happen.
If you’re a healthcare practitioner who prescribes, a consumer of medicines, or simply have an interest in this issue — I’d love to hear your perspective. What are the biggest barriers you face at work and at home? What would make greener prescribing and safer disposal easier in your world?
After all, the more we understand together, the closer we’ll get to solutions that truly work.
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