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Final Note

Target customers are digging through their trash to reuse discontinued pill bottles

Kai Ryssdal Sep 30, 2016
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Target's red, transparent ClearRX bottles were childproof, had clear lettering and personalized color rings to avoid consuming the wrong medication. Scott Olson/Getty Images
Final Note

Target customers are digging through their trash to reuse discontinued pill bottles

Kai Ryssdal Sep 30, 2016
Target's red, transparent ClearRX bottles were childproof, had clear lettering and personalized color rings to avoid consuming the wrong medication. Scott Olson/Getty Images
HTML EMBED:
COPY

CVS bought Target’s pharmacy business for nearly $2 billion last year. So far so good, right? 

Well this week we got word Target’s signature red ClearRx bottle would disappear as CVS aligned everything with its 9,600 pharmacies, which use the classic amber bottle with the difficult cap. It’s an efficiency thing, but it turns out people are really committed to the ClearRx bottle — enough to dig their old ones out of the trash for reuse, the Associated Press reported.

Target received wide praise for the ClearRx bottle when it debuted in 2005. The bottles have a clearer label, easier childproof lid and colorful rings so family members don’t mix up prescriptions. It won the Design of the Decade award from Industrial Design Society of America, and its even been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Disgruntled customers took to Twitter and signed petitions protesting the change, Quartz noted. Some are even reusing their old bottles, which could be dangerous.

For what it’s worth, the same designer who made ClearRx is working with CVS on a new system.

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