Waste Management
Mayne Pharma is committed to responsible waste management. In the pharmaceutical industry, the extent to which waste can be recycled is limited as wastewater, manufacturing wastes, plant consumables (i.e. HEPA filters) and packaging materials may contain pharmaceutical compounds, cleaning chemicals and other reagents and residues generated in product development and production processes.
Mayne Pharma’s waste management policies ensures all site waste is handled, labelled, stored, transported and disposed in a manner that does not cause a nuisance or offensive condition, contribute to health or safety incidents or damage to the environment.
We are obligated to ensure pharmaceutical compounds such as controlled substances (ie Schedule 8 medicines in Australia or CII-CIV in the US) are completely destroyed under supervised conditions, which requires the use of high temperature incineration at an offsite third party facility.
In Australia, the Company uses Veolia Group (a leader in waste removal and resource recovery) to manage the Company’s hazardous waste – both collection and disposal and operates within the EPA guidelines of South Australia.
To the extent possible waste streams are separated to remove uncontaminated cardboard, soft plastics, paper and other recyclable materials from general waste to minimise the amount of waste transferred to landfill or destruction.
During the introduction of new products, potential sources of waste are considered and procedures and processes are developed and implemented to minimise waste. During development and scale up of new products, wastes identified as potentially harmful to the environment are retained and chemically tested to confirm concentrations and approval is sought from the relevant regulator prior to discharge to trade waste or destruction.
Mayne Pharma is continuously monitoring and assessing ways to effectively manage and treat waste produced from its operations. The Salisbury site works with third party waste contractors to identify opportunities for improved recycling systems to improve performance in this area.
Manufacturing sites have water quality parameters for liquid trade waste to ensure waste water is suitable for discharge, in accordance with regulatory licensing. Trade waste is sampled for both water quality (for example Total Dissolved Solids, Biochemical Oxygen Demand), and specific chemicals (for example Phosphorous and Nitrogen) on a regular basis. These parameters are monitored on site, by independent third-party consultants and by regulatory authorities to ensure compliance with licensing agreements.
Audits of the trade waste management system are periodically conducted by regulatory authorities to monitor compliance to relevant standards and where necessary, corrective actions are implemented to address any observations made.