Concerned about waste, plastic pollution of the oceans, and resource depletion, consumers want packaging materials that are minimal yet protective, renewable, recyclable, reusable, and/or contain recycled content, with clear instructions for package recycling. To earn an eco-friendly reputation, packaging must be designed with sustainability in mind, which requires paying attention to all components, including inks and adhesives, as well as disposal scenarios. Many pharmaceutical companies, retailers, and other members of the pharmaceutical supply chain have set sustainability goals and are ramping up efforts to reduce waste in support of a circular economy. 

	AstraZeneca, for example, has several sustainable packaging initiatives underway, including the launch of a blister laminate that reduces waste, a mail-back pilot program to collect used inhalers, and efforts to prevent pharmaceuticals from contaminating the environment (1). 

	Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) is working to meet a 2020 deadline for its current set of sustainability goals. Waste management is one focus. As a result, the company is conducting a software-based lifecycle analysis to assess the environmental impact of packaging materials used for certain products (2). The company also has eliminated polyvinyl chloride (PVC) bottles and trays and has reduced the use of PVC in blister packaging with the goal of eventually eliminating it entirely (3). 

	Other efforts include simplifying a packaging insert in accordance with recommendations in the company’s 

. This change saved 70 tons of paper per year and allowed more product per pallet, which reduced ocean container requirements by 30%. The result? Resource conservation, waste reduction, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and a savings of more than $2 million annually (3). 

Household Generated Sharps Management Plan 

offers guidance, instructions, and/or recommendations for handling and proper disposal of sharps. Users of the self-injected product also may participate in a no-cost, mail-back program (4).

	At Merck (known as MSD outside the US), 

guidelines help engineers minimize package sizes and specify more environmentally friendly materials. In 2018, a packaging design change for some of its solid-dose products increased the number of doses per case and reduced the weight of the packaging by approximately 25%. The reduction in materials lowered transportation requirements and greenhouse gas emissions (5).  

	To support the movement toward a circular economy, several groups have developed guidelines for more sustainable packaging. A 

developed by Walmart in collaboration with Pure Strategies, The Association of Plastic Recyclers, and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, helps suppliers pursue recyclable packaging and recycled-content goals (6). It discusses what type of plastic packaging is more easily recyclable, identifies recycling challenges for certain packaging materials, and supplements the Walmart sustainable packaging playbook, which describes best practices such as optimizing packaging design and using consumer-friendly recycling labels (7).

	With high interest in renewable content, recycled content, and source reduction, packaging suppliers are introducing more environmentally friendly products. A collaborative effort by jARDEN Plastic Solutions, SACMI Group, and Milliken has developed a lightweight high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pharmaceutical bottle. The design depends on a barrier additive from Milliken and proprietary compression blow forming equipment from SACMI, which are used by jARDEN Plastic Solutions to produce thin-wall bottles that are up to 28% lighter than standard designs. The strong, lightweight containers offer excellent barrier performance, require less energy to manufacture, and generate less scrap (8). 

	To improve the recyclability of tube packaging, Hoffmann Neopac has published the 

, it recommends a thin-walled body and shoulder consisting of PE or polypropylene (PP) with less than 5% barrier content, lightweight caps of the same material as the tube body, natural or light coloring, and minimalist graphics with solvent-free, ultraviolet-cured inks and varnish. “Sustainability and recyclability can be particularly challenging in the pharma sector, where packaging solutions must protect and preserve the efficacy of important medicines and complex formulations,” said Martina Christiansen, head of Pharma sales and marketing at Hoffmann Neopac. “We see this guide-and the tubes that can be produced by adhering to it-as an important step in an ongoing process to make pharma packaging more eco-conscious.” The company also offers an EcoDesign portfolio that includes the Recycled Tube, featuring 75% recycled, food-grade compliant PE; Sugarcane Tube, made from renewable raw materials and offering the same characteristics and processability as fossil-based PE; and PICEA Tube, comprised of 95% renewable material in the tube body and shoulder-including 10% spruce wood recovered from sawmill waste (9). 

	Sana Packaging makes cannabis product packaging using recycled HDPE sourced by Oceanworks, which intercepts and recycles plastics that impact the ocean. “Our first run of reclaimed ocean plastic cannabis packaging removed four tons (8000 lb) of plastic waste from our oceans,” said Ron Basak-Smith, co-founder and CEO of Sana Packaging (10). Sana Packaging also produces 100% plant-based cannabis packaging from hemp. 

	Recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers have been introduced by Bormioli Pharma. Made from 100% pharma-grade recycled content, the containers exhibit transparency and physical and mechanical properties equivalent to virgin PET (11). 

	AptarGroup is partnering with PureCycle Technologies to commercialize the latter’s ultra-pure recycled PP for dispensing applications. PureCycle’s patented recycling process, developed and licensed by Procter & Gamble, separates color, odor, and any other contaminants from plastic waste feedstock to transform it into resin with properties equivalent to virgin PP. “This critical partnership further reinforces our commitment to supporting a circular economy where products and materials are reused or recycled and do not become waste,” stated Stephan Tanda, president and CEO of Aptar (12).

	AptarGroup also provides lotion pumps for several products available via Loop and is a partner in the global circular shopping platform established by TerraCycle. With Loop, consumers purchase products in reusable packaging and they arrive in a returnable Loop tote. Once empty, the consumer replaces the container in the tote and schedules a pickup. Returned containers are cleaned, refilled, and readied to reship, creating a circular product experience (13). 

	Another Loop partner, RB, offers several over-the-counter products via Loop. The effort moves the company toward achieving its commitment to making 100% of product packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. “Reusable packaging is the future of consumption,” commented Nitish Kapoor, executive vice-president of the Health Business Unit for RB North America (14). 

	Renewable BioBase packaging is being launched by Sanner with the introduction of a 25 mm-diameter tube for effervescent tablets with matching DASG-1 desiccant closure. Biopolymers derived from renewable resources, such as bio-ethanol, achieve bio-based content above 90% and significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. “Bio-based packaging solutions have the same key characteristics as common packaging solutions; they can be processed on existing filling lines and can be recycled,” says Peik-Christian Witte, director of R&D at Sanner. In addition, says Witte, “compared to common tubes made of fossil resources, this solution can increase shelf life of the tablets due to a higher water barrier performance, which is an additional value-add for our customers. These features support waste reduction for both the packaging solution and the packaged goods.” 

	Sustainable packaging also is available for temperature-controlled shipments. The foam-free ClimaCell insulated liner from TemperPack now carries a How2Recycle label with the designation “Widely Recyclable.” “Getting the How2Recycle certification will help ensure that anyone who receives a ClimaCell product will know that it can be disposed of alongside the cardboard box or paper bag it came in,” said James McGoff, co-founder and co-CEO of TemperPack (15). 

	Liner thickness and density can be adjusted without major retooling to meet the needs of controlled temperature or frozen product. “ClimaCell liner options work with gel packs, ice packs, or dry ice and consist of a number of plant-based materials,” says John Briney, director of marketing at TemperPack. The company uses a combination of materials, including starch, to increase the hydrophobicity of the insulation, and wraps the extruded insulation in coated paper.

	“Overall feedback on ClimaCell has been great, especially in the specialty pharmacy industry,” concludes Briney. “Most of the patients that were receiving [polystyrene foam] coolers had no easy way of disposing them and either stockpiled them or threw them away in their trash. We’ve received comments from a number of customers of how relieved they were to be able to recycle this new packaging, knowing it can be turned back into paper for other products.”

	1. AstraZeneca, “Leading with Health, Sustainability Report 2018,” 

accessed Nov. 20, 2019. 
	2. Bristol-MyersSquibb, “Waste,” 

, accessed Nov. 20, 2019.  
	3. Bristol-MyersSquibb, “Product Stewardship,” 

, accessed Nov. 20, 2019.
	4. Bristol-MyersSquibb, “Household Generated Sharps Management Plan,” 

(May 2019).
	5. Merck, “Materials & Packaging,” 

, accessed Nov. 20, 2019.
	6. Sustainable Packaging Coalition, “How2Recycle and Walmart Packaging Innovation Summit,” GreenBlue November News and Updates, Newsletter, Nov. 21, 2019. 
	7. Walmart, “Walmart Announces New Plastic Packaging Waste Reduction Commitments,” Press Release, Feb. 26, 2019.
	8. Milliken, “jARDEN, SACMI, and Milliken Collaborate on Sustainable, Lightweight Pharmaceutical Barrier Bottles That Reduce Plastic and Energy Use,” Press Release, May 9, 2018.
	9. Hoffmann Neopac, “Neopac Introduces Tube Design Guide for Optimum Recyclability at CPhI Worldwide,” Press Release, Nov. 25, 2019.
	10. Sana Packaging, “Sana Packaging Launches New Line of Reclaimed Ocean Plastic Cannabis Packaging,” Press Release, March 5, 2019.
	11. Bormioli Pharma, “Bormioli Pharma to Bring Sustainability to the Pharma Industry with the First Compliant Green Plastic Packaging Solution,” Press Release, May 10, 2019.
	12. AptarGroup, “Aptar Enters into Strategic Partnership with PureCycle to Accelerate Integration of Ultra-Pure Recycled Polypropylene into Dispensing Solutions,” Press Release, Sept. 3, 2019.
	13. Aptar Group, “Aptar Announces Partnership with TerraCycle’s Loop Platform,” Press Release, Aug. 29, 2019.
	14. RB, “RB Makes Popular Consumer Health Products 100% WasteFree,” Press Release, May 21, 2019.
	15. TemperPack, “TemperPack Partners with How2Recycle Label Program for Its ClimaCell Product Line,” Press Release, Sept. 5, 2018.

 Packaging Editor, editorhal@sbcglobal.net.

Articles

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Pharmaceutical companies work toward a circular economy by using sustainable packaging. 

Prioritizing Sustainable Packaging

	The energy efficiency of technologies for bio/pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities is changing quickly, and manufacturers can take advantage of these improvements for both old and new facilities, says Keith Beattie, executive director at Energy Efficiency Consultancy EECO2. 

spoke with Beattie about trends and best practices in sustainable pharmaceutical facility design. 

What are the key trends in sustainability in bio/pharma facility design?

There are several trends in equipment use and facility design that will improve efficiency and sustainability. The trend towards use of isolators for improving sterility assurance, for one, also leads to the use of lower cleanroom class background environments, which require less energy to maintain. 

	Single-use technology in biopharma manufacturing is being promoted as a more sustainable solution to large fixed vessels. It is reasoned that these allow smaller batches and therefore smaller facilities house them, with a subsequently lower HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air conditioning] energy demand. In addition, water use is lower because the systems are disposed of rather than washed. 

	Although I wouldn’t yet say it is a trend, there are some examples of companies taking a more holistic design approach, in which they consider and implement sustainability design from an early stage. Good examples include the winners of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering Facility of the Year Award (ISPE FOYA) for sustainability, such as the Pfizer Consumer Health manufacturing facility in Suzhou, China, in 2018. 

	I know of one company that is changing their HVAC design standard to mandate design of low (40–45 °C) temperature heating coils in HVAC systems, which would enable them to use waste heat from processes. There is a lot of wasted heat in pharma plants, but often temperature is not high enough to be useful. HVAC is a good use for this heat, but only if coils are sized appropriately. Retrofitting is almost impossible. Design from day one gives you possibilities for the future-so designing flexibility in is a good thing to do.

	A definite trend I have noticed over the past 18 months is that sustainability (in particular addressing climate change) is getting serious C-level attention, with many organizations making public commitments to going further to tackle this business issue, declaring aims to be carbon neutral or even carbon negative. This is significant. A range of solutions will be needed to achieve this, with increasing efficiency being a key one-simply off-setting emissions is not going to cut it with an increasingly aware stakeholder base.

What are the biggest areas of waste in pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities? What are some examples of best practices in tackling these areas?

The most surprising thing is that most facilities don’t know where their waste is, because they don’t have an effective metering and monitoring system or do not review the data that are available to them. From our experience, one of the biggest areas of waste is energy, especially consumption related to HVAC. We find many opportunities for energy savings here on almost every site we go to. For example; inefficient, faulty, or inappropriate control systems, configured for GMP compliance only, with little account of efficiency is one of the simplest things to solve. It is possible to be compliant and efficient! Another is over-processing of air: larger flow rates than necessary, over-cooling, over-dehumidifying, simultaneous heating and cooling-all preventable with no product quality impact.

	Another area of waste is water. It’s generally a cheap resource, so paybacks on project initiatives to reduce water use are not often prioritized over energy savings. However, because its cheap, few manage it effectively, and there are often many low to no-cost opportunities to uncover. We often find savings opportunities in quality water systems (water for injection [WFI] and purified water), where the treatment processes make the water a more expensive resource. Opportunities include the recovery and reuse of WFI drain water or of water from reverse osmosis regeneration; often these can be used in lower grade uses such as cooling tower makeup or boiler makeup.

What are some best practices for refurbishing older bio/pharma manufacturing facilities for energy efficiency?

 You should always review any space where use has changed to ensure the HVAC system particularly is not over-designed for its new use. Look for the best available technology; do your research, because technology development in energy efficiency is moving fast. Rising energy prices and falling technology costs do change efficiency project return on investment (ROI) dramatically, so an opportunity rejected for low ROI a few years ago, may now have become economic to do.

	For example, HVAC fan technologies have improved enormously over the last five to 10 years. electronically commutated (brushless direct current) motors/fans, for example, can be installed in arrays (a group of fans) rather than one single fan. The array adds the benefit of redundancy, and retrofit is easier. Many older facilities have much larger fans running slowly, as the facility may have already done an air-change rate reduction. These large fans are now very inefficient, so changing to a correctly sized fan array can demonstrate great savings. In older facilities, fans are often at or past end-of-life, so the business case is good for replacement. Replacement offers benefits such as energy saving, reliability, quality improvement, and less maintenance.

What are some best practices for new facility design?

Companies should consider sustainability early in the design stage (pre-concept design) and carry it on all the way through. There is always a pressure to ‘value engineer out’ non-essential features, including sustainability features, but this is a very short-term view that is becoming increasingly unacceptable. It takes a strong company leader with a clear vision to ensure the right things are kept in.

	Dynamic modeling and simulation of lifecycle cost and energy and water use is an evolving technology that helps designers make informed choices. Building information modeling (BIM) for commercial buildings, such as offices or hotels, has been around a long time, but BIM is more complex in a pharma plant. Where it has been found useful is to model the interaction of different technologies and the synergies to maximize the ‘system’ efficiency, rather than simply the efficiency or contribution of discrete technologies evaluated in isolation.

	The new ISO 14644-16 (energy efficiency in cleanrooms) (1) and the soon to be published, updated ISO 14644-4 (design, construction, and startup of cleanrooms) (2) have excellent guidance on new thinking about cleanroom design. The basic philosophy behind these standards is that you should design your cleanroom with efficiency in mind and with the ability to tune it during its service life to match the real performance needed and to minimize energy.

Do new technologies for artificial intelligence (AI), such as predictive maintenance, help?

I have seen some examples of AI/machine learning in building controls to identify inefficiencies and flag these to users for action. One example I saw a few years ago was a client who was very proud of the long (170 items) list of issues to address on his control system that would improve efficiency. But he still struggled to get anything fixed; every month the same items would flag on the report. The point is that there are new technologies emerging that show promise, but there are well-established, proven technologies available today that are not being fully exploited. 

	Dynamic control of cleanrooms based on real-time measurement of particulate concentration and microbiological contamination to assure quality and deliver huge energy benefits is a reality now. I believe this technology will start to be adopted at scale over the next two to three years. For example, the EECO2 ICCS [Intelligent Cleanroom Control System] uses advanced predictive control to enable response to changing conditions in the cleanroom.

Cleanrooms and associated controlled environments-Part 16: Energy efficiency in cleanrooms and separative devices 

Cleanrooms and associated controlled environments-Part 4: Design, construction and start-up 

Energy and water waste can be improved with new technologies, and sustainability can be considered in the design of new facilities. 

Equipment and Processing Report-02-19-2020

Prioritizing Sustainable Packaging

Improving Efficiency for Sustainable Pharmaceutical Facilities