Pharmaceutical Industry - Industry Overview

There are currently 8 major pharmaceutical companies actively involved in the Waste Minimisation Project. The group has also formed strong partnerships with the major industry associations, those being the Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association (APMA) and the Australian Self-Medication Industry (ASMI).

The group has achieved excellent results to date, many improvements have been achieved through companies simply sharing with other companies. A few examples of this sharing include:

• One company giving a presentation to the group and hosting a tour of its worm farm for recycling of canteen waste.
• Many companies were disposing of fibre drums to landfill, until one of our members found a contractor who would recycle the drums - and this was shared with all members.
• One company shared its approach to reuse of wastewater from its Reverse Osmosis system with other companies.
• Recently another member shared an approach it had developed to minimising hazardous chemicals used in cleaning equipment. Based on this presentation a generic approach to help companies analyse opportunities with cleaning solutions has been developed.

Such sharing through our meetings has lead to good friendships, and consequently excellent day-to-day networking which is a greatly valued aspect of the process.