Technically… But there’s also a lot of waste from the 500 pack that people throw out half of. It likely evens out.
I don’t think there are many people just chucking pills out. 1000 isn’t much if it’s your go-to pain relief.
Ibuprofen solid tablets take about 5 years to expire (they are also pretty safe to eat expired as well, just might be less effective). So you have to have about 4 a week on average, which is well wihin safe limits even for a single person (and these are more for families).
As an example usecase If you have 3 menstrators in your household that take 4 a day 3 days a month (daily safe max is meant to be 6x200mg tablets) then that’s ~450 a year and you’ll be using them up more than quick enough to not throw any out, and that’s just dealing with cramps alone. Throw in someone with back pain, the occasional headache and sprained ankle, etc, and you can see how quickly a big family could go through them.
Personally I don’t quite go through them that quick (I use roughly 100 a year) but if my household was 1 bigger it would make sense for me too.
Reading this thread, I kinda feel weird.
When I was a child, I use to take tablets for headache (no idea which ones. I was a child.) and almost every time, the headache came back more intense than before, when the effect wore off.
Later, I started understanding that headaches (and other pains) happen for a reason and it is better to find out the reason and fix it, than just turn off the alarm.
So now, even if I get hurt due to something, I say no to pain relievers. This has even saved me from re-injuring a previous injury a few times.
- Sprained ankle / back pain : exercise and yoga.
- Cramps from exercise: next time do proper stretching after exercise.
- menstruation: I have no idea. never had that. sorry. But I can say for sure, people around me don’t tend to resort to taking pills all the time. Even those that have it hard.
- broke a ligament: definitely don’t take a pill, or you won’t realise if you are about to break it again.
Over here, pain management pills seems more like a last resort and not to be used for something that happens regularly. So, reading about it being treated like cereal, feels pretty weird.
I believe individually packaged tablets actually do help reduce overdoses because you can’t just chug the whole bottle in one go. Yes it’s more wasteful but it does save lives.
