Essay - Waste Management of Maltese Pharmaceutical Industries Discussion Very Real Problem...

Waste Management of Maltese Pharmaceutical Industries

DISCUSSION very real problem in waste management has been in existence ***** Malta for many years of indifference towards the problem, preference for less financially taxing management but more threatening to the environment, lax and inefficient legislations, and a ***** high population in a small territory. There has also been negligible progress in the waste management sector ***** present disposal facilities are inadequate, have long ***** saturated and below modern standards. Add to **********, there ***** been no comprehensive inventory of waste production, composition and ***** systems because of a lack of laws for record-keeping on waste generati***** or unavailable records of private companies, no clear definition ***** waste and a lack of uni*****m recording system on waste statistics. Increased public concern with the toxicity of ***** products and their effects on human health and the envir*****ment led to ***** expansion ***** environmental laws, prominently the new Environmental Protection Act of September 2001, and o*****r laws on waste *****, now that Malta is a member of the Europe*****n Union.

The new law ***** directs local pharmaceutical companies' waste management policies and systems while they turn out life-saving ***** and develop cost-effective mechanisms in handling their *****s according to Maltese and EU **********. These laws require that such companies dispose ***** their waste products according to high ethical ***** professional standards, which will increase their productivity levels and improve product quality for global competitiveness while protecting public health and the health of the environment. The ***** of disposal facilities, *****se ***** ***** resorted to stockpiling through which ***** ***** products were exported to other countries with the appropriate *****. Increase in pharmaceutical wastes has been attri*****ed to ***** expansion of pharmaceutical manufacturing sec*****r, the availability of well-qualified workforce with high st*****ard of education, the low cost of labor especially after Malta became a member ***** the Europe*****n Union, and the consequence of the Inward Processing Relief from duties, ***** encouraged exports ***** EU. There is a ***** need to come up with guidelines in dealing with pharmaceutical ***** ***** ***** the laws and regulations set in ***** and ***** ***** and to complement seven previous studies conducted on the subject in Malta from 1998 to 2002. Besides *****se *****, a series of St*****ard Operating Procedures, suited to a case study, in safe and correct waste *****, must be developed and validated.

The ***** manufacturing company involves the creation, purification and packaging of chemical products for use as medication or some o*****r therapeutic value ***** human beings ***** animals (U.S. EPA, 1981). It uses a v*****t range of natural substances ***** plants and animals, organic metals and wholly organic materials, worked on by different processes and *****, which turn ***** wastes of ***** qualities ***** quantities. Because the quantities and qualities ***** waste products depend on the volume of production, it is virtually impossible to determine the typical or average amount of effluent from these processes and *****. They can, however, be classified into air em*****sions,