Technological leap

Precious resource

Watershed project

The river Mures flows gently through the Carpathians.

Science

A watershed moment

Drug production not only requires huge amounts of water. Contamination with active pharmaceutical ingredients and other production residue is another huge challenge to keep water use under control, especially in water-scarce regions. In Romania, Singapore and India, Novartis Technical Operations is implementing new technologies to save water and help local communities manage their resources.

Text by Patrick Tschan and Goran Mijuk

Despite limited space, the team in Murges found a lot to build the new water treatment facility.

Table of contents

Technological leap

Precious resource

Watershed project

From its spring in the Eastern Carpathians, the river Mures flows westwards, making a detour of more than 1000 kilometers via the Tisza and the stately Danube before finally flowing into the Black Sea.

For thousands of years, the settlements on its banks have benefited from the river’s water, including Targu Mures, a university town of about 150 000 inhabitants, which is located in the former German-speaking region of Transylvania and sits almost in the middle of Romania.

Thanks to the abundance of water, as well as an excellent pharmaceutical faculty, the town developed into one of the most important industrial centers in Eastern Europe, which has helped it attract several large players, including Novartis Technical Operations (NTO).

The company, which has been active in the region since 1996, produces some 0.4 billion single medical doses here every year. The production process not only requires large quantities of water but also forces operators to carefully filter out potentially harmful ingredients.

Workers had to develop ingenious processes to erect the water treatment facility.

Technological leap

In the past, production sludge and residue, including active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), were incinerated together with the water. But now, in order to save water, energy and costs, the NTO management in Targu Mures have built a new water treatment plant. It has been in operation since 2019 and is equipped with the latest carbonfilter technology to better purify it from APIs and support local communities.

“We built a new water purification plant not just to comply with the highest industry standards, but to save water and help Novartis reach its water neutrality goals and give back to society,” says Florin Butiulca, who heads the Health, Safety and Energy function at the site. “With the new method, we not only save water but also make substantial financial savings, as the production sludge is minimized,” Butiulca explains.

The water and financial savings are the result of a technological leap stemming from a new generation of activated carbon filters, which can retain APIs more effectively than conventional filters. As part of the purification process, the production water is first processed in a bioreactor before it is passed through an activated carbon filter, which retains all APIs, and from where the water is transported to the local sewage plant, where it is treated and made fit to be released in the Mures river.

“This is a major technological step,” Butiulca says. “It not only allows the purification of our water to almost drinking quality on our site – the fact that we transport it to the local sewage plant is also a safety measure. We are really a sort of pacemaker for other industries to use novel technologies that can help the world save water in general and allow the United Nations to reach its Sustainable Development Goals.”

As part of its climate change efforts, the UN has formulated 17 goals, one of which focuses on the use of water and aims to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.” Novartis, which fully subscribes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aims to be water-neutral by 2030 and to halve water consumption in its own operations by 2025 compared to its 2016 level of consumption. In 2019, Novartis used 67.2 million cubic meters of water, down from 79.1 million cubic meters in 2016.

Once the structure was erected, the team had to make another heavy lift ...

Precious resource

In Singapore, another important NTO manufacturing site, which produces around 3 billion tablets a year, Novartis is also making fast progress by using innovative water treatment technologies to recycle production wastewater, which is set to help drastically reduce the need of fresh water supply.

This is vital. Because of to the scarcity of local water availability and the high demand for cooling water due to the tropical climate conditions in Singapore, this project has a very high strategic value for Novartis and Singapore itself.

“Potable water is a precious commodity in Singapore,” says Manuel Ungerer, Site Development Head in Singapore. “On this small island, water conservation opportunities are limited and the provision of drinking water to the 5.7 million inhabitants is complicated and expensive. Therefore, the government welcomes any relief regarding the water supply.”

To boost the vision of a highly sustainable site and minimize our environmental impact on the local community, management in Singapore decided to install an efficient wastewater segregation system in combination with a reverse osmosis unit, which allows water to be purified to an acceptable recycling level. “By using this technology, we require less water from Singapore in the future and help the government reach its goals to save water,” Ungerer explains.

The Singapore government, which since 2015 has required all industrial companies to employ a certified energy and water manager, was impressed by the reverse water treatment system of Novartis, which was the first of its kind in the country on such a large scale. “We are proud of this achievement,” Ungerer says, adding that “it’s quite possible that the government will define our plant as a desirable standard for similar industries.”

Helping to make the most efficient use of water in Singapore: The new wastewater segregation system with a reverse osmosis unit allows water to be purified to a high level.

Watershed project

While efforts in Targu Mures and Singapore have come a long way on the back of new technologies, associates in India are working on another innovative model to limit water use and conserve rainwater.

They plan to implement watershed management technologies, which have proven successful in helping some regions restore their scarce water resources.

“India is one of the countries most affected by water scarcity,” says Bhagwat Sudhir, who helps oversee the watershed project. “Cities such as Hyderabad risk depleting their groundwater. For this reason, we started to look at water management systems that not only are sustainable for the industry but also have a positive effect on society in general.”

Watershed technology takes the natural flow of water in a region into account in order to manage water supplies, be it for irrigation or for other purposes. In a nutshell, a watershed is a geographic area that collects rainwater and drains it out through a single outlet, be it a stream or a river system.

“The reason why we opted for this technology is that just focusing on business needs is no longer the only approach to ensure business sustainability,” Sudhir explains. “In view of the increasing water scarcity and probable conflicts with shared water users, it is important to look beyond a company’s needs and make a difference through watershed projects, which help to enhance water availability in regions of operation.”

Working together with a local NGO, Sudhir and his colleagues aim to initiate a watershed development project near the company’s supply chain operations in India’s Telangana region. “The goal here would not only be to improve our own water management, but to provide the community with a sustainable source of water,” Sudhir explains.

Benefits for communities can be massive. A study from an India-based NGO of 15 villages revealed that watershed technology can increase crop outcome, irrigation areas and agricultural employment between 30 to 230 percent.

“We are still in a very early phase,” Sudhir conceded, “and it will take at least two years before we can see the results of our first pilot project. But, taking the water scarcity in India and other countries around the world into account, we definitely need to take action and spur innovation to get sustainable results that help not only enterprises but society at large. With the pilot watershed project in India, we are definitely on the right track in achieving our water neutrality goal.”

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