Solid Waste Management in the Drug Industry
GEORGE L. HUFFMAN, Engineer
Industrial and Agricultural Data Section
Office of Solid Waste Management Programs
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
Cincinnati, Ohio
INTRODUCTION
The Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 called for the initiation of a program of
research and development aimed at providing solutions to the multitudinous
problems associated with effective solid waste management. To meet the responsibilities under this Act, it is necessary to obtain basic information about the solid waste
produced by specific industries—the character, quantity, distribution, and potential
for economic reuse of the waste.
The Federal solid waste management program of The Environmental Protection Agency initiated a study performed by the Environmental Systems Division of
Litton Systems, Inc., Camarillo, Calif., to define the solid waste management
problem of the drug industry. The major findings of this study are summarized here
and a full report will be forthcoming.
Because drug industry wastes are extremely diverse in composition, they are
extremely difficult to classify and very difficult to define adequately. This is
especially true of the process waste associated with the production of the drugs
themselves where the process wastes consist of such items as discarded biologic and
microbial masses; reject or off-specification drug material; chemical dusts; and
diatomaceous earth and various other fillers.
The inherent characteristics of drug wastes make their disposal and especially
their reuse difficult. The production process wastes are generally fairly small in
volume; they are extremely complex in nature; they are very often well mixed; and
they are often composed of constitutents that are considered by many to be fairly
toxic or hazardous material when in concentrated form.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DRUG INDUSTRY
AND ITS SOLID WASTE
The drug industry can be liberally defined as that segment of the U. S.
manufacturing activity that produces medicinal chemicals, pharmaceutical products,
and biological and botanical products used for medicinal purposes. The industry,
which represents about 1 percent of the total sales volume of all U. S. manufacturing
corporations, is made up of about 30 "core companies" and over 2,000 smaller
companies whose products, markets, and geographical areas of operation are more
specialized and somewhat more restricted. The 30 core companies accounted for
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