Study on the feasibility of hazardous waste recycling: the case of pharmaceutical packaging

bottles in poly(ethyleneterephthalate) (PET), for syrup; plastic bags and films of varying composition and thickness];• pharmaceutical waste [flexible multi-layered (plastic and aluminium) sachets containing granular medicine].; Hazardous waste management should fulfil the following three main goals: (i) to protect human health and the environment, (ii) to reduce waste while conserving energy and natural resources and (iii) to reduce or eliminate the volume of waste to dispose of. The lasttwo of these goals may derive from recycling, which aims at reducing raw materials and energy consumption and decreasing the volume of waste materials that must be treated and disposed of.However, recycling must be conducted in a safe way, ensuring human health and environment protection. Recycling activities should be regulated at a different degree on the basis of the risk they cause to human health and the environment. A hazardous wastedestined for recycling must be identified by type and recycling process in order to determine its level of regulation.Pharmaceutical packaging represents a very small percentage of hazardous waste, but its management can cause problems for the environment, depending on the type of packaging waste is concerned. Such waste may include:• uncontaminated waste (assimilated to domestic waste: paper, cardboard, glass, plastic);• contaminated waste (paper, cardboard, glass, plastic), e.g. waste that has been in contact with cytotoxic products, blood, blood-derived products or radioactive products.Waste is created at all stages of the supply-chain: production, distribution and use of a pharmaceutical product. At each step, care therefore needs to be taken, either by the manufacturer or the end-user, to protect the environment.In several European countries, pharmaceutical manufacturers must dispose of their waste, or by themselves or by external specialized companies, and are encouraged to recover packaging waste. In both cases, waste management represents a considerable cost for themanufacurers.The use of environmental-friendly packaging (i.e. recyclable or degradable packaging) has to be considered. Valuable packaging materials, such as aluminium paper, glass and plastic materials, can been extensively recycled if they have not been in contact with toxic or dangerous substances.The chapter is focused on a feasibility study for the management of packaging waste from a pharmaceutical plant, considering the following phases:• waste materials characterization;• preliminary tests on waste processing;• set up of size reduction (comminution) operations.Experimental tests have been executed on several typologies of packing, as listed:• primary packaging [bottles in high density polyethylene (HDPE), for suspension to be reconstituted