55% of South Koreans replied that they just throw away un-used medicines in the trash or flush them down the drain. 36% said they just leave it somewhere in the house.

Until now not a single pharmaceutical company or the government informed the public on the proper disposition of the medication. Then it has the possibility of drug abuse in the household or polluting the soil or drinking water.

To raise awareness on the proper medicine disposal process and participation in a simple way, we used a ‘medicine envelope’ as a media. Since any customer gets one at pharmacy.

According to OECD, medicine disposal problem in the household is universal.

In United states, 42% of the prescribed medicine is neglected, In France, annually 17,600 tons of medicines is reported unused or expired. (2018)

Yearly pharma volume of manufacture in Korea is over 22.4 trillion won. On 2022, daily average of medicine prescription rose 15% year on year. The rise of prescription medicine follows the rise of neglected medicines. Han River in Seoul is also contaminated by down-the-drain pharmaceutical remains. With 5700ng/L cumulative concentrations observed, which ranks top 30% worldwide.

So we thought we need to raise social awareness on proper distribution and fix the inconvenient in-person disposition process, where one must go to a pharmacy or public health center.

We came up with a new and safe solution. Our campaign will stand as a barrier to the threat unproperly disposed medicines have on people’s health and environment.

In Korea, pharmacists dispense prescribed medication inside a paper envelope of the size of a span of a hand. In Korea, it is assumed that more than 240 million medication envelopes is being distributed a year. This is only counting Rx (prescription drugs). All these envelopes are thrown away in the garbage after use.

We started a campaign where these small medicine envelopes enable patients to be educated on the process of proper disposal of the medicines and dispose it in the mailbox with this very envelope. Therefore, contributing to a healthy and sustainable society by solving problems on both expired medicines and used medicine envelopes.

In Korea, more than 240 million prescriptions are issued a year. Which also means more than 240 million medicine envelopes are distributed.

We thought we could use these envelopes as a CHANNEL to inform the public of the proper medication disposal process. We didn’t stop there. We turned the back side into a prepaid postal envelope and made it possible for people to simply put their expired medication in the envelope and drop it off at a nearby mailbox.

We selected Special self-governing city Sejong as the target region. Sejong City is perfect since it is the administrative capital of Korea. Also, we considered that more than 50% of the population in Sejong city is young married couple in their 30s.

Therefore, we included theaters and phamacies near pediatrcis in the media plan because we thought it was necessary to deliver this campaign to there where young couples in Sejong City often go with their children.

And since the elderly also receive a lot of medicine, TV media with high utilization rates of senior citizens were included in the media plan so that senior citizens in Sejong City could know how to dispose of expired medicine correctly.

We placed these envelopes in every pharmacy in Sejong. We had in mind that more than 50% of the population in Sejong city is young married couple in their 30s. So we placed additional envelopes at pharmacies near pediatrics.

Also, we aired the campaign in theaters. And with the help of The Korean Pharmaceutical Association, KOREA POST and the local government we also advertised the campaign at public facilities such as city hall, community service center and public offices.

Theater screen ads were executed for about 20 days, and videos were executed for about 3 months in public institution buildings.

And our main and largest media, "Mail Old Meds Envelope", were placed in pharmacies in Sejong City throughout the campaign.

- Expired medicines collected in Sejong city during campaign period: 5,170kg (Jan~Jun)

* 345.7% increased YoY

-The ministry of Environment announced its plans to expand the campaign nationwide through public broadcasting station(MBC)

-Korea TV (Public policy broadcasting service) run a special feature twice

-The campaign The Seoul Metropolitan Government, the capital of the Republic of Korea, has implemented this campaign(From 2023.06)

-Naju City has implemented this campaign(From 2023.08)

-Sejong ministry of Education deeply sympathized with the campaign and started educating elementary student on proper disposal practice. Targeting the younger generation in raising awareness