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Waste

Our research, production and commercial activities all produce waste, which we aim to manage safely and responsibly. We manage waste from when it is generated to its final disposal. We want to eliminate waste where we can, reduce it where we cannot, re-use materials if possible, recycle other waste and dispose of any remaining material sensitively.

We generate different kinds of waste in different parts of the business:

• Production – hazardous wastes such as solvents and other chemicals.
• R&D and quality laboratories – small amounts of chemicals including products and intermediates, as well as broken glassware and plastics
• Offices – paper and other standard commercial waste
• Renovations take place in production, office and lab space which produce non-routine waste such as obsolete equipment, office furniture, structural materials

Most of the active ingredients in our pharmaceutical products are manufactured using chemical processes. This means that a significant proportion of our waste is classified as hazardous because it contains solvents and chemicals used in these processes. We report hazardous waste separate from non-hazardous, and identify non-routine waste such as construction and demolition rubble because the volumes depend on building activity and tend to be inconsistent.

Most production facilities segregate their wastes, re-use what they can, send what they can for recycling, and incinerate or landfill anything else. Incineration is usually the preferred choice for dealing with solvents that can’t be reused or recycled. Sites try to use waste management companies which use incinerators that recover energy from burning the materials.

We aim to use reputable waste handling companies for waste disposal. We require disposal contractors to comply with our EHS requirements and local regulations. Our internal EHS audit team audits waste disposal contractors to make sure they handle waste appropriately.

In the past, some waste and chemicals handling practices (which are no longer followed) contaminated land and groundwater. We are continuing to clean up these sites to deal with health and environmental hazards.

GSK and its heritage companies have spent more then £100m cleaning up more than 50 sites in the US over the last 20 years. We are continuing to clean up 25 of these sites. Most of them are waste disposal sites where GSK is one of several responsible parties.

Performance
In 2005, we disposed of 41 million kg of non-hazardous waste and 68 million kg of hazardous waste.

Non-hazardous waste disposed per unit sales decreased by 14% since 2004 (27% since 2001) – meaning we have beaten our 2005 target of an 8% reduction per unit sales since 2001.

Hazardous waste disposed per unit sales decreased by 14% since 2004 (but increased 3% since 2001) – meaning we have not met our 2005 target of a 15% reduction per unit sales since 2001. This is due to a combination of factors which are described in the hazardous waste section.

Many of our sites have introduced waste minimisation and recycling initiatives. In 2005, we recycled 278 million kg of waste (72% of the total waste generated). The proportion of waste recycled increased by 2% since 2004 (but decreased by 6% since 2001) – meaning we have not met our 2005 target of a 10% increase in the proportion of waste recycled since 2001.

Production changes in recent years led to a greater proportion of solvent waste being incinerated, and less recycled. Now some of the primary manufacturing sites are beginning to be able to recycle more solvent so while we are still missing the target, we are beginning to make progress in the right direction once again.

We continue to work on reducing waste, especially hazardous waste. One of our material efficiency aspirations is to minimise the number of solvents used or use smaller amounts so we don’t have so much to dispose of (see case study). Our Operational Excellence initiative, which started in 2001, has a strong focus on elimination of all types of waste from manufacturing processes. This is reflected in applications for the CEO's EHS Excellence awards - 11 projects in 2005 involved eliminating or recycling waste.

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