Pharmaceutical Technology Europe - November 2010 - (Page 10)

Packaging What strategies has your company put in place to improve the environmental impact of its packaging processes? Consolini (IMA): We are constantly testing and trialling plastic films designed to reduce the environmental impact of our packaging processes. The results of these tests and trials have been promising. Also, the machines and complete lines that we design and manufacture have reduced energy consumption. Ludwig (Bosch): There are a number of ways that environmental issues can be addressed in pharmaceutical technologies. For instance, for pharma equipment with high energy consumption, environmental benefits can be achieved by reducing water and energy usage. Often, modules or transport conveyors of a packaging line continue Q to run during operator breaks or equipment failures. Energy consumption can be reduced dramatically by having the machine recognise the situation and cease operation to reduce energy consumption. This can be aided by software-based assisting systems. In the sealing process, ultrasonic sealing technology can also help reduce energy consumption by 30% compared with heat seal applications. The seal quality of ultrasonic sealing allows savings of up to 10% in flexible packaging material, and also provides the ability to control the sealing process based on the monitoring of parameters to reduce rejects, waste and rework. Environmental benefits can also be gained by eliminating complex interfaces between functional modules, which reduces failures leading to rejects of packaging materials. This substantially decreases the waste of packaging industry. At our company, we’ve focused on using our servo drive technologies to allow recuperated drive energies to be transferred to the electrical power net. Product Ma n Track & Tra ager for ce at Bosch Packaging Technology . Franz Ludw ig material and consumption of energy for the rework. To really address environmental impact, it is vital to look at the whole production, packaging, distribution and sales processes. A prerequisite for this integrated view is close cooperation between a company’s marketing and production departments and packaging systems suppliers. Peters (Gerhard Schubert): The packaging industries are only just starting to look into environmental savings and these efforts haven’t yet been standardised across the Schäfer (Optima): This question is becoming more and more important. The test runs we have to go through before the line is qualified demand a huge amount of packaging materials to verify all functions. We try to minimise these numbers by using detailed test procedures, without influencing the reliability of the process. In the field of freeze drying, for example, we have put our efforts into energy reduction for each batch run and are constantly working on further reductions. Our own energy consumption was also reduced recently when we installed concrete core cooling in our last office building. We also switched providers to get 100% renewable energies in some of our facilities. 1 CONTENTS 12 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT 3 EMERGING MARKETS 13 LEAK DETECTION 7 ANTI-COUNTERFEITING 14 ROBOTICS 11 INNOVATION 15 TOP TECHNOLOGIES

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Technology Europe - November 2010

Pharmaceutical Technology Europe - November 2010
Table of Contents
Pharmaceutical Technology Europe Poll Assesses the Most Important Feature of Pharmaceutical Secondary Packaging
Emerging Markets
Counterfeiting
Green Packaging and Processes
Innovation
Is Pharma Doing Enough to Reduce the Environmental Impact of Packaging?
Leak Detection of Pharma Packaging
Should Your Implement Robotics in Your Packaging Operations?
Twelve Latest Technologies Showcased

Pharmaceutical Technology Europe - November 2010