In this blog, we cover category 28.3 from the list of hazardous wastes under the Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016, viz. date expired, discarded and off-specification drugs/medicines from the Pharma Industry.

This industry is concerned with the healthcare of people at large and produces medicines and drugs for practically every conceivable illness.  They have a very important role to play in healthcare with the help of quality medicines that they produce.  However, in the process there are some rejects and left-overs such as, for example, while making capsules or expired medicines in their stock.

A capsule is made up of gelatin (hard or soft) and non-gelatin shells generally obtained from hydrolysis of collagen from animal origin or cellulose based.  After making the capsules from the gelatin net, the remainder of the gelatin is of no use to the pharma industry.  The nature of this material is such that if it is exposed to a high ambient temperature, it will start melting and running out, causing problem to contain them.  This has to be disposed of without accumulating the stock by the best available option, viz. incineration.

There are expired or rejected medicines which cannot be permitted to be circulated in the market.  These are again disposed of by incineration.

Activated carbon or charcoal is also a waste in pharmaceutical industry.  It is used primarily as an absorbent to remove pollutants during bulk drug manufacturing.  This can be reused a couple of times, after which it loses its characteristics and needs to be disposed of. With incineration, the charcoal tends to increase its volume and becomes fluffy.  If the incinerator is not designed properly, considering this, it can lead to leakage of the fluffy substance through any gaps.

There are also pharma companies that produce vitamins and enzymes obtained from organic products like grains. The left over chaff and other organic substances are collected in the ETP in sludge form. These also require to be incinerated.

Haat has supplied its incinerator systems with various configurations starting from a simple customized PD to BP, PDR, ADR and LRD to many pharma companies in India and abroad.

Some of these are listed below:

1.                Cipla

2.                Geltec

3.                GSK

4.                Eros Pharma

5.                Warner-Lambert

6.                J.K. Pharmachem

7.                SPIC Pharmaceuticals

8.                Opsonin Pharma

9.                Medrich Sterilab

10.             Biocon

11.             Himalaya Drug Company

12.             Cheminor Drugs Limited (Dr. Reddy's Group)

13.             Strides Arcolab

We are happy that many of our installations are still working after many years of installation, to the satisfaction of the users.