Student Design Awards winners: Without the waste

Brief 7: How might we use circular economy principles to rethink the storage, delivery and dispensing of tablet medication?

Winner:

• Allivate - Amy Philips, Ella Harvey, and Rebecca Paradise, Loughborough University, England

Commended entries

Winner: Allivate

Personalised antihistamine and immunotherapy microneedle patches that eradicate the need for pill packets, producing 98% less waste.

The mainstream solution offered to hayfever sufferers is taking daily tablets for life. Approximately 280 million antihistamine blister packs end up in landfill each year as part of this linear system. Allivate proposes using dissolvable microneedle patches to deliver antihistamines to users before eventually delivering a personalized 5 year course of immunotherapy that will dramatically reduce and eventually eradicate symptoms of hayfever, meaning medication is no longer needed. This combined solution produces 98% less waste compared to conventional blister packs.

Commended entries

Highly Commended

Aaron Salter, Adam Weir and Maxwell Stevens, Loughborough University, England

BioPill: A fully sustainable dispenser and medication management service which provides pre-filled and sorted medication biopods to the user.

Commended

Frances Adam, Brunel University London, England

Green Returns: A user-friendly, reusable and recyclable aluminium packaging solution which works within an Ontario-style deposit return scheme system.