Waste
Resource conservation is managed at Boehringer Ingelheim as part of an ongoing process of prevention and reduction of material usage and waste. Our goal is to design the most efficient approach already in the planning process of drug development.
Waste management and disposal at all sites worldwide have to be in compliance with all relevant legal requirements. Our sites are responsible for measures and activities to improve the use of materials and to increase the recycling rate. According to our corporate procedures, our employees handling hazardous waste are regularly trained on site.
Data
In addition to our disposed domestic waste (in tons), we on a yearly basis record hazardous waste, including pharmaceutical waste resulting from operations at our production and R&D sites. In order to facilitate the comparison of our performance, we publish a disposed waste index (in %, relative to sales volume, base year 2010).
The reuse rate (%) shows the percentage of material collected for the recycling and thermal reuse processes.
Details on metrics are provided in the chapter Performance indicators.
Waste and Recycling in 2012
The total amount of waste generated in recent years has remained relatively constant, despite an increase in sales.
The proportion of hazardous waste increased in 2012 by 1,841 to 21,120 tons, the domestic waste disposed decreased by 589 to 5,771 tons. The waste index of 82 %, i.e. disposed waste relative to our sales volume, shows, however, that the waste intensity has improved overall. This was achieved through continuous improvement of processes and changing employee behaviour.
Boehringer Ingelheim tries to reuse as many materials as possible. Our reuse rate (recycling as well as thermal reuse), which refers to the operations at our sites, is with 77%, as in previous years, at a consistently high level.