Greener Products and Solutions

How can you develop environmentally friendly chemicals that are just as effective as traditional substances? This question has been asked by the life science company, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Through the company's "Green Chemistry" program, the Group develops and produces sustainable alternatives to the usual chemical products.

Jeffrey Whitford is Head of Global Corporate Responsibility and Life Science Branding at MilliporeSigma. While they are working on developing sustainable practices, in this episode he describes for us how his company took a more aggressive approach to start – they are driving sustainability into their products.

As I reflected on the unpredictable zigs and zags of my career, I thought back to that very confident (my mother would have said way too confident) and dare I say naive 22-year-old, and I’m still in awe of where I find myself today. My worldview, desire for inclusion and appreciation for experiences have grown. Although, a few things haven’t changed, including my belief that the power of possibility can be limitless, desire to be quicker and an unquenchable thirst for more information to power change. As a friend and colleague recently said to my team during an off-site meeting in York, U.K.: “It’s not just hard work, it’s knowing how our business works that leads to success.” In my mind, truer words have never been spoken, and that all started proofreading catalogs.

Wrapping up our bioprocessing category is MilliporeSigma’s Biopharma Product Recycling Program. The increase in single-use plastics waste is pushing biopharma manufacturers to address the environmental impact of currently utilized methods of disposal, such as landfilling and incineration, and question whether there is a better option.

In an exclusive partnership with Triumvirate Environmental, MilliporeSigma has developed this better option — a program that enables bioprocess manufacturing customers to fully recycle plastic single-use and disposable products, including bio-hazardous classified material, without requiring segregation or disassembly.

The shortlist for Ethical Corporation's 9th Annual Responsible Business Awards has been announced. The winners will be revealed and celebrated at a glamorous Awards Dinner ceremony on 9th October in central London.

Global industries are redefining their core business strategies by adopting greener chemistry practices that are reinventing supply-chain ecosystems to design models that create value for all stakeholders – including the planet. By simply adopting greener chemistry practices, whole industries have seen positive benefits ranging from novel innovations, reduced operational waste and costs, to increased market presence by differentiating themselves amongst their competitors.

Despite an impressive start, single-use technology recycling is still in its infancy in the biopharma industry. The MilliporeSigma/Triumvirate partnership is the only one of its kind in the industry and is focused primarily on East Coast facilities. As global disposable plastic production continues to exceed the ability of waste management to keep up, recycling is becoming imperative.

For me, one of the key lessons from our program is that partnerships and a sustainable business model are key to making single-use recycling programs successful. The work to get to where we are today has been challenging but also rewarding – especially when you are working with truly innovative companies who are determined to find solutions to a difficult problem.

The Biopharma Single-use Product Recycling Program - a collaboration between MilliporeSigma and Triumvirate Environmental - collects, shreds, sterillises and recycles disposable plastics for the biopharmaceutical industry.

The program has facilitated the recycling of single-use bags, tubing and connectors, and cartridge and capsule filters at Triumvirate's plant in Pennsylvania since 2015.

Samy Ponnusamy, a green chemistry fellow at MilliporeSigma, explains the development of DOZN’s scoring system to Chem.info, saying, “We wanted to differentiate ourselves from other companies offering to perform similar testing, so we decided to take these principles and use them as our basis for evaluating products. We developed a complex algorithm for each principle. Then, using our 300,000 product portfolio, we tested relative greenness against each of the 12 principles, and from there produced an aggregated score from zero to 100, with zero being the best possible score, meaning the most green.”