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Case Study

Our consumer healthcare site in Bogotá, Colombia, has developed a system to reduce the environmental impact of disposing of unused liquid pharmaceutical products, including product returns or rejects.

The liquid waste is treated in reed beds. Although reed beds are becoming increasingly popular to treat domestic and industrial wastewater, the Colombia team are pioneers in using them to treat pharmaceutical waste.

Reeds (usually phragmites australis) planted in specially designed soil beds provide an ideal environment for bacteria and fungi to break down hazardous chemicals naturally into harmless components. The reeds themselves absorb some chemicals in the waste as nutrients. In our initial trial, treating a mixture of waste syrup and used oil, levels of chemicals in the residual water from the reed beds fell below legal limits after 35 days.

The system replaces high temperature incineration, which is energy intensive and does not dispose of certain wastes such as syrups effectively. Using reed beds has reduced the cost of final disposal per kilogram of product by 60%.

Building our own reed bed treatment plant at the Bogotá site was not feasible because there was not enough space, so the team promoted the idea of a joint initiative with other companies. In June 2003 the waste treatment company Transform Ecoskandia Ltda and other financial partners founded Transform Biolodos Ltda to build the first large reed bed plant in Colombia for industrial and public use.

The Bogotá site won first place in the environment category of our internal awards scheme - the Chief Executive Officer's Environment, Health and Safety Excellence Awards. The site closed in 2004, but the reed bed treatment plant is now used by several other major companies.

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