Product Lifecycle
Millipore’s products could have environmental impact throughout their lifetimes, from the early stages of R&D and materials selection, to manufacturing, product transport and, finally, end-of-life. To meet customer expectations and requirements, ensure compliance with regulations and demonstrate our commitment to environmental stewardship, we design our products with these impacts in mind.
Our product development process consists of the following stages: preliminary investigation, detailed investigation, development, validation and commercialization. The preliminary investigation stage presents the greatest opportunity to shape the environmental performance of new products. Therefore, we:
- Determine what chemicals and hazardous or toxic materials to use in products or the manufacturing process and the possibility to replace those materials
- Indentify potentially relevant regulations such as the U.S. Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA), and European Union REACH, RoHS and WEEE Directives (see below), and adhere to those regulations.
Product Materials
In most of our products, materials selection and consistency is critical to our customers, and all materials we use must meet high quality and performance standards. We also look for opportunities to source environmentally responsible materials, including those made from renewable resources. Although only a few of our products require U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licenses, many go into FDA-licensed processes at our customers’ sites, and we must ensure that we meet their strict requirements. As a result, changing materials for existing products can be a complex process, if possible at all without the need for renewed licensing.
Worldwide regulations are increasingly restricting the use of materials and chemicals in some products. For example, in the European Union, the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive restricts materials (such as lead and cadmium) that can be used in electronic products sold in Europe. Although Millipore’s electronic products (such as systems for purifying and monitoring lab water) are currently exempted from RoHS, we are proactively assessing how to eliminate the substances covered by this regulation. This will allow us to demonstrate leadership while remaining prepared for possible new or expanded regulations.
Millipore has assessed how it will be impacted by Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH), a critical directive from the European Commission related to controlling and restricting chemical use. We established a cross-functional, cross-site team that has already looked at our own supply chain and our products, to ensure that we meet all pre-registration requirements.
We are proud to also have evaluated the use of bioplastics for some product applications. Millipore recently launched the new EcoStand tube holder, which is made from a biobased plastic resin and is completely biodegradable and compostable. The EcoStand is our first bioplastic product, but it won’t be our last!
Manufacturing
Millipore manufactures many of its products, which results in environmental impacts such as air emissions, energy use and climate change, waste, and water use. See Our Approach for descriptions of how we address these and our performance in each area.
Packaging
Millipore's reusable totes reduces packaging waste.
Product End-of-Life
Millipore's Mobius product line uses disposable technology.
Millipore makes a wide range of products, with different options and outcomes at the end of the useful product life. Some filters, such as our Tangential Flow Filtration (TFF) line, can be cleaned chemically and then reused, and many customers select this option to receive the most value from the product.
Some of our products that contain electronic components, such as the RiOs and Milli-Q filtration systems, can be recycled. We offer a web site to help customers comply with the European Union Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive.
Many of our products, however, such as Durapore filter cartridges, by design can only be used a limited number of times, depending upon our customers’ processes, and then must be disposed. This is necessary to ensure required levels of sterility in the drug manufacturing process. This poses an ongoing challenge, as we try to balance product health benefits while minimizing environmental impacts and the waste our customers must manage at the end of the product’s life (see below).
Analyzing Life Cycle ImpactsAssessing the relative impacts of alternative product or process designs is complex, and the optimal solution is not always clear. Impacts can be site and company dependant. For example, our Mobius product assembly line can replace many parts of a fixed, stainless steel bioreactor process chain. This may seem to increase environmental impacts due to use of single use plastics and the resulting increase in solid waste. However, in addition to providing process improvements of cost, speed and reliability, this alternative system avoids the need to steam clean the steel containers, which decreases customer energy use and reduces wastewater, and use of caustic solutions. Millipore has been actively involved in determining where there are environmental benefits and costs to disposable technology, and continue to work on lifecycle analysis of these products. We will continue to weigh these sorts of factors when designing products and processes, and provide information to our customers so they can decide on the best course of action for their facilities. Millipore has published information on lifecycle impacts, and we have posted copies of these articles, below: |
Metrics
Sustainability Highlights
News
- Millipore Corporation named Corporate Citizen of the Year
- Millipore Demonstrates Leadership in Sustainability by Reducing Carbon Footprint 14 Percent
- Millipore Joins EPA’s Green Power Partnership
- Millipore Presents on Sustainable Energy Program at INTERPHEX 2009
- 10 Firms Join Panel on Green Business - Environmental Efficiency is Key