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We have re-designed the packaging for a number of products to make
it more environmentally friendly and also to enhance safety.
Environmentally friendly packaging
Environmental considerations have been incorporated into several
packaging re-design projects, saving resources and eliminating waste.
Amersham Health has redesigned the packaging for its x-ray contrast
products, Omnipaque™, Visipaque™, and Imagopaque™ to make it easier
to use and to minimise its environmental impact. Following discussions
with customers and an assessment of regulations it was agreed that
the new packaging should be light, unbreakable, simple to open and
stack, easy to dispose of and recyclable.
Research into different materials found that polypropylene containers
have advantages over glass. The new packaging is safer to transport
and use in hospitals because, unlike glass it does not break .The
polypropylene Unique Soft Bottle (USB) containers, used at our sites
in Cork and Oslo, are also more compact and lighter than glass.
Consequently, waste is reduced and the cardboard inserts previously
required to protect the glass are no longer required. Lighter containers
(weighing just 20% of their glass equivalents) also reduce transport
impacts.
Additionally, the polypropylene containers do not require initial
on-site washing and sterilising. The new containers can also be
easily recycled since the entire container is made from one material
and sorting of waste is not needed. Amersham in Germany supports
its customers by providing a recycling system for used containers.
Cardboard boxes for collecting the packaging are provided to customers
and are collected for recycling when full.
Amersham Biosciences in Cardiff also redesigned packaging to minimise
its environmental impact. For example it has replaced the PVC packaging
inserts used in its bioscience research kits with cardboard inserts.
Over 15,000 kits are sold per month, resulting in a sizeable reduction
in the use of PVC. The use of polystyrene and solid carbon dioxide
(dry ice) was also reduced through the introduction of nucleotides
shipped at ambient temperatures. In addition, less packaging is
needed because insulation is not required, resulting in lower overall
freight weights and a reduction in transport impacts.
Safer packaging
In response to customer demands for safer to use packaging, now
being enforced in the US through legislation, Amersham Health provided
SafePak™ to customers for administering Omniscan™ and flushing of
lines with saline. This package mitigates the potential for needle
injuries, and was recently redesigned to make it even easier and
safer to use, and more environmentally friendly.
As part of the redesign, the overall volume of the package was
reduced by more than 50%, reducing transport impacts and making
it easier to store. Additionally, the old package had 25 parts,
used seven different types of materials, and five of the materials
were difficult to separate. The new kit has only 15 parts and uses
only three types of material. Overall, this makes it easier to recycle.
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