With the increasing implementation of single-use technologies in the biopharmaceutical industry, there are also growing concerns over their potential environmental impacts. Due to the nature of the technologies being discarded after a single use, they can appear to be damaging to the environment. However, this perception has been challenged by various Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) which demonstrate that single-use technologies in fact have a less detrimental environmental impact than traditional reusable systems (Flanagan, 2015).

An LCA is an internationally recognised methodology which can be used to assess, across a range of indicators, environmentally positive or negative impacts of a product or technology (ISO, 2006). The importance of the LCAs conducted is that they assessed the full lifecycle of each of the bioprocess technologies (single-use and traditional), including supply chain, use, and end of life.

The assessments provided a number of interesting results, which are summarised below:

• The overwhelming majority of negative environmental impact for both single-use and traditional technologies occurred during the operation stage of the technologies.
• The supply chain stage of single-use technologies had a slightly more detrimental environmental impact than that of traditional technologies. However, the impacts of this stage were significantly less than the operation stage.
• Single-use technologies required less water in all of the assessed stages: supply chain, operation, and end of life.
• The disposal at end-of-life of single-use technologies had a more detrimental environmental impact than that of traditional technologies. However, the impacts of this stage were negligible compared to the overall life-cycle of either technology.

Most importantly, the assessments indisputably demonstrated that single-use technologies can have a less detrimental impact on the environment than traditional technologies (Pietrzykowski et al., 2011) (Flanagan et al., 2014) (Flanagan, 2015).

A further LCA assessment was conducted which focused on more specific environmental impacts of single-use and traditional technologies. This assessment particularly looked at impacts on climate change and water consumption, and damage to ecosystem quality, human health, or natural resources (Flanagan, 2016). Figure 1 below illustrates a portion of the results of this assessment.

In conclusion, from the above results it can be broadly summarised that WFI energy use and CIP and SIP processes are what most affect traditional processes, while distance/mode of transport has the greatest effect on single-use processes. Overall, however, unequivocal evidence has been provided that single-use technologies can be more environmentally friendly when compared to traditional technologies.

References:

Flanagan, W., Pietrzykowski, M., Pizzi, V., (2014). An environmental life cycle assessment of single‐use and conventional process technology: comprehensive environmental impacts. BioPharm. Int. 27 (3): 40–46.

Flanagan, W., (2015). An environmental life‐cycle assessment: comparing single‐use and traditional process technologies for Mab production. BioProcess Int. 13 (11i): 10–26.

Flanagan, W., (2016). Single‐use and sustainability: quantifying the environmental impact.

International Organization for Standardisation, (2006). ISO 14040 (2006): Environmental Management — Life Cycle Assessment — Principles and Framework. Geneva: ISO.

Pietrzykowski, M., Flanagan, W., Pizzi, V., (2011). An environmental life cycle assessment comparing single‐use and conventional process technology. BioPharm. Int. 24 (S11): 30–38.