By ALESHA CAPONE
KEILOR resident Robin Ould has been CEO of the Asthma Foundation of Victoria for the past 17 years.
He also has personal experience of the illness, as his 15-year-old daughter Lauren has asthma.
Last week the father-and-daughter team visited the Keilor Village Chemmart Pharmacy to see an innovative new program put into practice.
In an Australian first, GlaxoSmithKline has launched the Complete the Cycle Inhaler Recycling and Recovery Scheme.
The puffer recycling plan is being piloted at chemists across Victoria, including Keilor, the Watergardens Chemmart Pharmacy and the Altona North Chemmart Pharmacy.
Under the scheme, asthma patients can take their empty respiratory inhalers to participating pharmacies to be recycled, with the re-used materials helping to create household items and generate energy.
Mr Ould said the Asthma Foundation of Victoria has thrown its support behind the Complete the Cycle scheme because of its environmental impact and as a way to facilitate communication between asthma sufferers and chemists.
“If every person in Australia with asthma recycled their inhalers for a year, more than 50,000 tonnes of CO₂ wouldn’t go into the atmosphere,” Mr Ould said.
“The equivalent of the impact on the environment would be to drive a VW Golf around the world 26,500 times.
“It is also important for asthma sufferers to have a conversation with their pharmacists, even to ask, ‘Am I using my puffer correctly’ and, ‘Should I be using this with my spacer device?’,” he said.
Mr Ould said he liked to see first-hand the impact the Asthma Foundation of Victoria could have in the community with its education and training programs.
“Since July 2010, 50,000-plus people have attended our nationally-accredited training courses, so our reach into the community and helping people is what is important to me,” he said.
“That’s what drives me, both with asthma and anaphylaxis.”
See http://www.asthma.org.au/ for more information.
