Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceuticals, in their current allopathic version of synthetic chemicals, have become a major greening issue. This is a result of increasing environmental hazards and adverse effects on human health resulting from the chemical ingredients. The environmental factor, or E-Factor, devised by Roger Sheldon in 1992, is a calculation derived from dividing the total waste produced in the process of production (in kilograms) by the amount of product created, thus providing a ratio that allows one to interpret the efficiency of production processes. The higher the ratio or E-Factor, the more waste is generated. According to Sheldon's analysis, pharmaceutical companies produce more waste in manufacturing drugs than oil companies as a percentage of the material processed (though much less in real-volume terms). Fifteen years after developing ...