A wide range of initiatives has secured Ego Pharmaceuticals’ place in the finals of the Pharmaceutical Packaging Action Award, sponsored by Cospak.
The privately owned Australian company specialises in dermatological products, as well as offering a range of other healthcare products, and exports widely to Asia and Europe.
Notable initiatives include the lightweighting and recycling of cardboard shippers and pallets; paper recycling and elimination of paper trails through introducing electronic systems; recycling metal drums and working with a drum refurbishing company; recycling lab solvents; and, receiving liquid paraffin in bulk tankers instead of 200L drums, using approximately six hundred fewer drums per year.
The company has also reduced the width and thickness of shrink wrap used and consumption of shrink wrap has been decreased by introducing machine wrapping over manual wrapping.
Shrink film used to wrap deliveries received is recycled.
Ego Pharmaceuticals’ new tube closure resulted in a 40% decrease of tube waste to landfill and the tops and tails of its PVC bottles are now returned to the manufacture process, reducing production waste.
The company is also minimising the rework and rejection rates and has purchased a new tube filler with a better tube sealing mechanism, which will result in fewer tube rejects due to poor sealing.
Ego’s on-site packaging waste going to landfill is below 0.1% of total production.
This amounted to 1.1 tonnes of waste going to landfill during the period July 1st, 2005, to June 30th, 2006, compared with 2125.8 tonnes of packaged product sold during the same period.
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