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Chartres is a cathedral city 80 km southwest of Paris. The Novo Nordisk factory dates from 1961 and is located on an industrial estate in the city itself. Crystalline insulin produced in Denmark is formulated and filled into vials or cartridges which are then packaged for distribution, mainly to Europe. The factory employs 214 people.
Major impacts
The filling of insulin into cartridges and vials calls for ultra-pure water for injection. To produce this, chemicals are used for water deionization and the sterilization of components, equipment and the manufacturing area. These processes account for much of our impact on the environment.
New filling plant
An extension to the insulin filling plant representing an investment of DKK 500 million was completed in June 1998. This has doubled the production area of the factory. The expansion is for the formulation and filling of Penfill® 3 ml (cartridges for insulin pens). Full production will not begin until a lengthy validation phase is completed. Water and energy consumption will increase during this period even though there is no real production increase.
Breaches, accidental releases and complaints
In 1998 there have been no breaches of regulatory limit values, accidental releases or complaints from neighbours at this site.
Environmental focus
The main focus is to reduce the consumption of water. For example, purges are used to flush out lime scale from the cooling towers. We will aim at decreasing the purges of the new cooling towers by installing an automatic flushing unit. This is expected to lead to annual water savings of 2,000 m3.
The waste water is treated at a municipal plant and we have been able to reduce the amount we discharge, resulting in financial savings.
Continuous monitoring of the temperature and pH of waste water released into the sewage system began in 1998. The new monitoring system is designed to redirect any discharges of waste water automatically into a holding tank of 10 m3 if the pH is abnormal. The temperature of the waste water is generally too high and we will evaluate how to recycle this water in our processes.
Ozone-depleting CFCs (R12) are still used in some older cooling equipment and our aim is to replace this refrigerant. |
