Rockwell Automation white paper urges solvent recovery as best ROI

In a white paper published by the information solutions provider, it warns pending US legislation could increase the cost of spent solvent incineration. The paper urges manufacturers to recycle these solvents to best impact on the company’s bottom line.

Rockwell also claimed that calculations currently used to determine return on investment (ROI) were flawed and that applying the same rules for production capital expenditures to investments in solvent recovery were, ‘overly simplistic​.’

In addition, the paper predicted a cap-and-trade​ system, modelled on the sulphur program of the 1990s, would be implemented by the U.S Government in an attempt to determine and subsequently reduce pharmaceutical manufacturing’s overall carbon footprint.

Environmental impact​

A number of companies in the pharma industry are attempting to adjust operations to reduce their environmental impact. These measures include making more efficient use of energy and altering manufacturing processes to make them more sustainable.

For example, Millipore has set a five-year goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent. To achieve this the company has launched a programme to improve efficiency, install and purchase renewable energy and ensure employees are aware of their role.

The white paper, written by David March, noted that, the pharmaceutical industry is the least efficient of all chemical industries in terms of waste generated per unit of product. He calculated that factories generate 200 pounds of waste for every pound of active pharmaceutical ingredient produced.

“An investment in solvent recovery actually reduces both a company’s supply-chain risk and manufacturing costs – solvent recycling should be viewed as a profit margin insurance policy,”​ said March.

“Pending greenhouse-gas legislation will increase the cost of organic solvents. Due to the very high atom economy leverage employed in pharmaceutical manufacturing, the cost impact could be multiplied by as much as 16,000.” ​

March added that solvent recycling shields the company’s profit margins from this negative leverage and the investment risk in solvent recovery technology would be significantly lower than that of typical production capital investments.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pharmaceutical companies generated 530m tons of toxic waste in 2005; 90 percent of which was produced by a list of 20 solvents that include methanol, dichloromethane (DCM) and formaldehyde

The paper also claimed that pharmaceutical plants produce a variety of wastes that are not reported to the EPA.

Plant waste​

“If we consider spent solvents as a percentage of all pharmaceutical plant waste, solvents still represent 80 percent of total waste generation​,” the paper noted.

“Clearly, pharmaceutical manufacturing is not only highly solvent-intensive, but the entire operation is dominated by the management, use and disposal of solvents.” ​

The paper goes on to recommend actions for manufacturers to consider including the collecting of data on solvent usage, establishing an appropriate rate of return, completing the necessary paper work on funding and tax and determining the life-cycle impact of each solvent.

The paper: “An Executive Guide to Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Efficiency and the Effect of Environmental Legislation,”​ is available to download from here*

(*www.rockwellautomation.com/industries/lifesciences/)