Keeping medicines safe during shipping is crucial. If temperatures fluctuate, packaging fails, or thermal protection isn’t consistent, it can harm the product, cause legal issues, and even put patients at risk. Plus, shipping medicines worldwide leaves a big carbon footprint. Companies are under pressure to reduce their environmental impact to meet sustainability goals. The Challenge of Shipping Medicines Medicines often travel long distances, sometimes to faraway places, through different climates, and stay in transit for a long time. This requires packaging that consistently protects the medicines from temperature changes, often following strict guidelines. Until now, single-use Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) has been the preferred choice. However, traditional single-use EPS packaging can create a lot of waste, use too much material, and increase transportation emissions. Globally, about 4.5 to 5.0 million metric tons of EPS packaging are produced and used each year. Only about 1.2 to 1.5 million metric tons are recycled, meaning roughly 24–30% is recycled, and millions of tons end up in landfills annually. North America has a similar situation. Around 300,000 metric tons of EPS packaging are produced yearly in the U.S. and Canada. In 2022, about 76,500 metric tons were recycled, which is about 25–26%. But only 9–10% of that came from post-consumer sources—the packaging most likely to be thrown away after one use. Recycling EPS in Medicine Shipments How can we improve recycling rates? How can we stop single-use EPS from ending up in landfills? It’s being done. Manufacturers of EPS products are tackling the challenge of what to do with used, single-use EPS packaging. While reuse and refurbishment programs exist, a recycling program that breaks down, recycles, and repurposes single-use EPS packaging is the future of sustainable packaging. A system like this is already in place under the Integreon Global business units. Cryopak, along with sister companies NexKemia (an EPS resin manufacturer) and Eco-Captation (a specialized EPS recycler), form a closed-loop Circular Economy model. By collecting recycled EPS through Eco-Captation, breaking it down, and sending it to NexKemia to mix with new EPS resins, then molding and shipping it to Cryopak for sale, a fully sustainable, transparent, and proven system is in action. To meet closed-loop Circular Economy standards, used EPS packaging is picked up and delivered directly to the recycler, ensuring full traceability and transparency. Along with recycling and reusing single-use EPS materials, offering more sustainable products is crucial for future solutions from manufacturers and service providers. Sustainable Packaging Using Graphite-Expanded Polystyrene Thermal efficiency is key in medicine shipping packaging but has lacked a sustainable option until now. Graphite-expanded polystyrene (GPS) is a strong material that improves thermal efficiency and offers a unique sustainable solution. A new GPS resin called NexBlu incorporates recycled materials into its packaging. It can be used in existing packaging solutions or as a standalone packaging option. Made of 30% recycled materials, NexBlu packaging provides a robust, reusable product that reduces carbon emissions through higher payloads and superior thermal performance, making it a viable and unique sustainable shipping solution. For these specific packaging solutions, the cooler uses ring extensions that can be added to the top, extending thermal protection and allowing for larger payloads. While the cooler itself is sustainable, the flexibility of ring attachments and larger payload capacity directly reduces overall packaging volume, transport costs, and emissions. Innovation drives economic growth, and it should also drive sustainable growth. Implementing innovative products, along with a Circular Economy approach to shipping and recycling, is the future of not only medicine shipping supply chains but all supply chains.