In his regular PharmaTimes feature, sustainability columnist Joe Newcombe looks out to pharma’s cleaner, greener horizon.
As much as 80% of carbon emissions attributed to biotech & pharma companies can come from their supply chain and reliance on carbon-intensive products like plastic.
Single-use plastic is often a necessary and sensible choice for many applications and cannot be replaced or used in smaller quantities without impacting scientific outcomes.
Although some plastic waste streams in pharma and biotech are already recycled, the reality is that these are typically processed into lower grade products like packaging materials or incinerated in ‘downcycling’.
It would be better to use these raw materials more circularly. In a circular economy, existing materials are reused and recycled for as long as possible. Unfortunately, circularity is frequently overlooked as a genuine contender for making impact due to the difficulty of implementation.
Read the full column in PharmaTimes.
See Joe's other PharmaTimes columns.
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