Our Performance
Waste Management and Recycling
A wide range of waste material is generated from our activities. These include general office paper, chemicals from laboratories, process materials from manufacture, and demolition and construction waste as a result of the new building projects or refurbishment of existing buildings. The generation of waste is not only a drain on natural resources but also presents the potential for environmental impacts as a result of its management including final disposal.
Management
Where possible we adopt the waste management hierarchy of Elimination, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, whereby waste is avoided or the materials reused or recycled. We continue to maintain a key focus on recycling wastes from our sites, with a current objective to improve our recycling of non-hazardous wastes such as of office paper, vending cups, drinks cans and glass.
Our Sandwich and Walton Oaks sites segregate solid non-hazardous wastes for recycling. Additionally, at Sandwich a waste-to-energy plant provides a proportion of steam to the site through processing combustible waste that cannot be recycled directly, as well as recovering energy from high calorific waste solvents.
For certain chemical wastes (from our research laboratories) segregation and packaging for onward disposal takes place via a purpose built state-of-the-art centralised management facility that offers the highest protection to employees and the environment. Trained personnel ensure compliance with all relevant legislative requirements including labelling and paperwork. Disposal will often require the use of specialist off-site management facilities and these are audited to ensure they meet the requirements of Pfizer Corporate Standards. The audits are carried out before a new facility is used and every five years subsequently.
Process Wastes
Our most significant recovered/recycled material in quantity is organic solvent used in our manufacturing processes. We aim to minimise the loss and disposal of these materials. Typically we directly reuse or recycle around 40% of our process solvents. Energy is recovered from a further 50%, either as waste-to-energy recovery or as a support fuel in the cement industry.
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
During 2008 our systems for the collection and disposal of WEEE became fully established and we managed around 40 tonnes of this type of waste, that requires careful management to maximise the potential for recycling valuable component parts. Careful management in this way also protects the environment by avoiding inappropriate disposal of toxic substances such as heavy metals, for example by landfill.
Our provision of dedicated collection containers has proved successful in helping to segregate these wastes and ensuring good onward management.
General Waste Recycling
At Sandwich , we are significantly self-sufficient in our waste management capability with about two thirds of our waste being self-managed or recycled/recovered and about half of that being in the latter category.
In 2008 we recycled nearly 400 tonnes of non-hazardous wastes such as paper, metal, drinks cans and plastics at our Sandwich site and nearly 100 tonnes at Walton Oaks.
These are key recycling streams for our sites and ones that our staff are able to influence on a daily basis through prudent use of resources and the appropriate route for recovery and recycling. During 2008 we recycled 42% of these waste streams at our Sandwich site and an impressive 70% at Walton Oaks site, following changes to our waste management processes.
Improvement Targets
At Sandwich a key improvement Objective and Target identified through our ISO14001 programme is to improve our general waste recycling performance. This includes a review of relevant waste streams, their segregation, management and opportunities for increased recycling. In addition a review of performance data has been made to establish meaningful measures that will help to demonstrate concurrent resource conservation, waste minimisation and recycling performance.
Our drive to minimise the use of resources and maximise the recycling of our waste has included:
- A review of our general waste streams and recycling performance
- Sitewide awareness campaigns
- Additional recycling opportunities for cans and plastic bottles from site retail outlets
- A successful pilot project to remove desk side bins to encourage improved recycling and segregation using communal office collection facilities, that resulted in a full site-wide implementation
- Recruitment of our staff as waste and recycling champions (known as Waste Beaters) to lead and promote good recycling habits in the work place
- Incentives to use reusable mugs for beverages
- Use of napkins made from recycled materials
- Reduction in the use of unnecessary plates and other crockery enabling reduced dishwashing
