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Hazardous waste

In 2004, we disposed of 73.7 million kg of hazardous waste (excluding demolition and construction waste). This is mostly solvents (82.6%), the rest being general site waste (15.3%) and chemical, biological or radioactive waste (2.0%).

In 2004, 50.2% of hazardous waste disposed was incinerated for energy recovery, 47.5% was incinerated without energy recovery. The remaining waste was disposed to licensed landfill sites.

Hazardous waste disposed
Year	Incinerated without energy recovery	Incinerated with energy recovery	Landfill
2001	31.2	28.7	3.4
2002	30.7	28.4	2.8
2003	32.1	26.8	2.2
2004	35.0	37.0	1.9

Per unit sales as percentage of 2001 baseline
2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
100%	94.5%	92.0%	117.3%	185.0%

Hazardous waste disposed
	Solvent waste	Site waste	Others*
2001	50.5	12.7	0.0
2002	50.7	10.3	0.8
2003	48.7	10.5	1.8
2004	60.9	11.3	1.5

Business	2001	2002	2003	2004
01. R&D	1.98	2.78	3.29	3.30
02. Biologicals	2.22	2.53	2.59	3.09
03. Consumer healthcare	0.74	0.95	1.33	1.35
04. New product and global supply	3.65	2.29	2.48	2.20
05. Regional pharma supply	1.71	1.91	1.86	1.70
06. Primary supply and antibiotics	52.46	51.19	49.09	61.83
07. Commercial	0.02	0.14	0.17	0.18
08. Other	0.44	0.07	0.04	0.04

Total hazardous waste disposed increased by 21.0% since 2003 (16.6% since 2001). Hazardous waste disposed per unit sales increased by 27.5% since 2003 (17.3% since 2001) - meaning we are not on track to meet our 2005 target of a 15% reduction per unit sales since 2001.

Our previous trend of reducing hazardous waste per unit sales was reversed in 2004 by a combination of factors. GSK's hazardous waste is mostly solvents and one plant scheduled for closure had to dispose of redundant solvent stocks. This had a one off impact on our data. In addition, changes to production at other plants included bringing in-house processes that were previously undertaken by contract manufacturers. Our engineers will be assessing how to optimise the new processes to reduce solvent use and increase recycling.

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