Energy Recovery From Unused And Expired Medicines
Author(s)
P. De Filippis, B. de Caprariis, M. Scarsella & N. Verdone
Abstract
Production and consumption of pharmaceuticals in the world are continuously
growing. An analogous trend can be observed for unused and expired medicines,
actually estimated in high-income countries to be greater than 40% of the overall
production of medicines. Thus, a correct disposal of this class of waste is
assuming increasing importance. Medicine wastage has, in fact, a huge impact
worldwide, more than in monetary terms especially for its potential
environmental impact such as contamination of groundwater and development of
antimicrobial resistance.
The two main options for disposing pharmaceuticals are: landfill and thermal
destruction, the latter being the best disposal method currently available. High
burn temperature and long combustion retention times assure that all organic
waste components are effectively destroyed, while effective pollution control
systems deal with exhaust gases and residues from the incinerated
pharmaceuticals. An alternative to incinerators is the use of existing industrial
furnaces, such as cement kilns or foundries that provide a viable and cheap
alternative to building economically expensive specific hazardous waste
combustors.
Considering that in unused and expired medicines the packaging materials
constitute the major amount of the waste, the alternatives are the disposal of
whole packaged pharmaceutics or the safe disposal of the pharmaceutics only,
after removal of the packaging. But this last option implies a high additional
cost.
The object of this paper is to investigate, on a stock of unused and expired
medicines representative of the Italian market, the potentiality of a pyrolysis
process as a safe disposal method while providing for energy recovery.
Keywords: pharmaceuticals, disposal, pyrolysis, energy recovery.
Keywords
pharmaceuticals, disposal, pyrolysis, energy recovery.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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