The professionals involved in the drug supply chain (dispensing pharmacists, wholesale distributors and drug companies) have made a joint commitment to set up a specific programme : Cyclamed. This non-profit organisation collects expired and non-expired unused drugs which patients bring back to the pharmacies for disposal and energy recovery.

This collection effort, which pharmacists have voluntarily engaged in for the past 15 years, has become a professional obligation (French law 2007-248, art.32, Official Journal of 27/2/2007 and decree n°2009-718, Official Journal of 19/6/2009). It responds to consumers' strong environmental concerns and has been set up to avoid discharging drugs into the natural environment (dumps, ground and surface water, etc.). The unused drugs collected by the pharmaceutical network are put through a clean disposal process.

In 2009, energy was recovered from 13,275 tonnes of unused drugs. This process is performed using 52 incinerators which are selected for their compliance with environmental standards and recover energy as heat and/or electricity.

The humanitarian redistribution programme, which ended on 31 December 2008 (French law n° 2008-337, published in the Official Journal of 16 April 2008) recycled 219 tonnes of drugs in 2008, or less than 2% of the total quantities collected. As of 1st January 2009, all expired and non-expired unused drugs are recovered for energy.

In total in 2009, 13,275 tonnes of unused drugs were collected by French pharmacies and stored by wholesale distributors prior to energy recovery. This collection is up by exactly 8% from 2008. 

Thanks to the synergy between the one-on-one information provided by the dispensing pharmacist and the televised awareness campaign, quantitative results are improving significantly.

"Thinking Cyclamed" (le réflexe) is a natural way to help protect the environment and a public health measure to prevent household accidents.