Clean Medicine: Strategies To Reduce Pharma's Ecological Footprint
By Tiyo Kok Fong, Market Manager - Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare, Asia Pacific, Veolia Water Technologies
Pharmaceutical manufacturing is essential for modern healthcare, but it also presents significant environmental challenges that often go unnoticed. Across the globe, high levels of pollutants have been detected in industrial effluents and streams.
These pollutants include pharmaceutically active micropollutants (PhAMPs), such as antibiotics, analgesics, and hormones, which are infiltrating various water sources due to a lack of discharge regulations in some regions. In Australia, organisations like National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS) and Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), regulate the registration of chemicals and manufacturing practices for pharmaceutical products respectively. However, there is no single governing agency or authoritative body that oversees and regulates violations related to limits for PhAMPs in wastewater discharge.
This issue is particularly concerning in Asia Pacific and Oceania, where water scarcity is a growing challenge. The contamination diminishes the available clean water resources, worsening the already critical situation of water scarcity in the region. With the rising demand for pharmaceuticals, urgent action is needed to address these issues.
The Hidden Costs of Pharma Manufacturing
The pharmaceutical industry is confronted with a variety of environmental challenges, with increasing concerns about water contamination from PhAMPs and the exhaustion of resources standing out as particularly pressing issues. Heavy water usage throughout the production process exacerbates water scarcity concerns in regions like Australia. Pharmaceutical wastewater contains pollutants such as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), solvents, and heavy metals, which pose ecological hazards to aquatic ecosystems and potentially human health through bioaccumulation and antibiotic resistance.
If PhAMPs are not properly treated, they can have severe environmental and health impacts. For instance, psychiatric drugs can alter fish behaviour, and endocrine-disrupting substances can cause toxicity in fish and increase cancer risks in humans. Overuse of antibiotics in pharma manufacturing contributes to antimicrobial resistance, potentially leading to a global health crisis, and untreated wastewater containing PhAMPs can exacerbate water scarcity issues to undermine global efforts toward sustainable water management.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers recognise the escalating concerns from investors and the public regarding the environmental implications of their operations. Strategic planning and proactive measures are essential to enhance environmental stewardship and to meet these expectations. These steps are imperative for corporations aiming to align with global sustainability goals and to contribute to a healthier future.
Anticipation of Change
Current wastewater treatment plants (WTPs) are not equipped to remove these pollutants because PhAMPs resist biodegradation and are hydrophilic. Traditional WTPs can partially neutralise PhAMPs but often fail to fully eliminate them as the equipment is simply not designed to consider these emerging contaminants. Such inadequate treatment has led to the release of these PhAMPs into surface water and to growing environmental concerns.
Manufacturers should aim to minimise the release of these micropollutants to align with the environmental criteria in the UN’s Environmental, Social, and Governance framework, as socially conscious investors are likely to evaluate a company's sustainability performance based on these standards. To prevent pharmaceutical waste from entering waterways, manufacturers ought to improve their processes to minimise waste and wastewater. Implementing effective waste management systems and investing in advanced wastewater treatment technologies capable of removing pharmaceuticals, including micropollutants, from wastewater is crucial.
How Veolia Can Help
Veolia provides a comprehensive range of advanced wastewater treatment solutions tailored to ensure compliance, resource recovery, and environmental sustainability in Veolia provides a comprehensive range of advanced wastewater treatment solutions tailored to ensure compliance, resource recovery, and environmental sustainability in pharmaceutical manufacturing. These solutions are designed to address various functions, from removing organic and inorganic pollutants to reducing wastewater volume and recovering valuable by-products.
In one successful project, Veolia's EVALED technology helped a multinational healthcare company reduce the volume of their polyethylene glycol (PEG) wastewater by 100% while also recovering valuable materials suitable for reuse as an additive in cement mills. This demonstrates the effectiveness of EVALED for wastewater minimisation and resource recovery.
Such solutions underscore Veolia's commitment to mitigating the environmental impact of pharmaceutical manufacturing and supporting a more sustainable and appealing future.
To learn more about Veolia's sustainable solutions for the pharmaceutical industry, contact our ANZ representative at [email protected] or visit www.anz.veoliawatertechnologies.com.