Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that all asthma inhalers are recycled.

The Sustainable Development Unit (SDU), a joint NHS England and Public Health England unit, has established a cross sector working group on low carbon inhalers. The group includes representation from a number of patient and clinician groups, as well as cross Government representation.

The SDU have recently reviewed a scheme operated by GSK that encourages return of inhalers for recycling, including recovery of the F-gases for reuse. The scheme is very welcome but limited in scope. The SDU has therefore invited industry suggestions to the national Low Carbon Inhalers Working Group on ways to increase recovery for environmentally safe disposal and recycling.

Furthermore, a cross system approach is now being developed into a system wide implementation plan, with specific actions being delivered by individual members of the group. All actions are supporting progress towards or exceed the NHS Long Term Plan commitment on low carbon inhalers. This will contribute to the overall National Health Service commitment in the Long Term Plan to reduce carbon emissions in line with the Climate Change Act.