Environmental Science Investigation: Production of Vitamin C

[Modestcat20]

On this project I aim to conduct an investigation on what the environment footprint of producing a supplement product was. Over the winter break, I was able to obtain an internship opportunity at a company that produces healthcare supplements. As I finished my internship, I was able to gain permission to do a day of investigation for my project. Before I start, I have a few questions for myself during the visit so I can solve them during the next day of investigation. 

 

1. What is the estimated amount of plastic, cardboard, and paper waste during the production of a common supplement such as Vitamin C? 

 

2. How does the production of supplements affect the environment, how big is the carbon footprint? 

 

3. Where are the existing raw materials supplied from, and what is the environmental impact extraction?

 

4. What are some ways we could reduce these plastic waste when manufacturing but also ensuring the identical quality and efficiency? 

 

5. How much energy is consumed during the process of production, and what sources of energy are used?

 

6. Are there any chemical or byproducts of producing this supplement that might harm the environment during the process? 

 

7. How are the raw materials and finished products transported, what is the associated carbon footprint?

 

8. Are there any methods to help us reduce the carbon footprint in the transportation stage? 

 

9. As there are usually leftover ingredients, what happens to these products?  

 

At the same time, I also made a hypothesis from my prior knowledge and I will be assessing the accuracy of my words after the investigation. By the end of the investigation, I will reassess my hypothesis from the beginning and check the accuracy.

 

Hypothesis (1): 

 

The production of supplements such as Vitamin C requires materials that generate a significant amount of plastic cardboard and paper waste primarily from packaging materials and ingredients containers by implementing reusable or biodegradable packaging. This solution will help substantially reduce waste while maintaining product quality. 

 

Hypothesis (2): 

The manufacturing process of supplements including vitamin C has a huge environmental impact because of its energy consumption and transportation related carbon emissions. If transitioning to renewable energy sources and optimizing supply chain Logistics we can effectively reduce the overall carbon footprint of production. 

 

Hypothesis (3): 

The extraction and sourcing of raw materials for supplement production such as Vitamin C has a considerable environmental impact due to the land degradation and emissions from transportation and farming. The process of sourcing from local or sustainably suppliers can minimize these effects.
 

Investigation:

 

I started the investigation by looking through the process of one of their production lines. When I was in the factory, they were producing something relatively easy to make in their field, Vitamin C. As they walked me through the process, I was able to track the estimated number of plastic usage in the entire production. At the same time, there are many more areas where greenhouse gas emissions could be created. Although cardboard is made out of paper, the production of this material still requires refining tree material to create paper, which will create greenhouse gas in the production process.

After counting the total amount of plastic and other non-reusable waste, I will conduct short interviews with the staff members of the factory to analyze my hypothesis from the beginning and seek the possibility of implementing some strategies that were discussed. 

 

Step 1 at 9:30 A.M. - Unloading the supplies and packaging: 

 

The starting process of manufacturing something like supplements usually starts when a truck comes into the storage room and unloads several packages of supplies. These packages include supplies the workers need from making and producing these goods. This is because in the supplements industry, every company has different roles in the business. For example, some companies would supply these factories with the necessary supplies and pay them a certain amount to help them package, then receiving them to distribute to the sales associates they have. In the case of this company, they would order materials from Canadian companies and make what their partner company in China sells. For example, when the partner company in China sells 50, 000 capsules of Vitamin D in China, the order would be sent to the office workers in Canada and they would order materials for the factory workers to produce. To simplify this process, here is a diagram to show how this business cycle works:

 

Back to the company, after unloading these materials from the packaging, where the plastic and cardboard covers first come into my sight. In this process, the workers had to remove the plastic wrappings around materials such as the capsules to contain the supplements and also the covers. When the factory first received these materials, each of the capsules contained a high quality plastic wrapping. Since this order was for 10, 000 bottles of Vitamin D, the office workers had to order more from their suppliers because during the production process there would always be usage of more capsules because some would not be in the best shape for selling and a whole list of problems around the products. Therefore, the office workers would always order 10-15% more than what is needed in order to make sure they do not run out of supplies during the production process. When I inquired with the office workers about that specific order, they claimed that they ordered 10% more for bottles and 15% more for caps because they tend to consume more from previous productions. Here is a formula I came to conclusion with:

 

10, 000 (bottles) * (1+10%) +10,000 (caps) * (1+15%) = 22500 (plastic wrapping)

 

Therefore as of right now, there have already been 22500 plastic wrappers used. Usually all of this will go into the garbage as served their purpose. Meanwhile, despite the plastic usage, only around 40 cardboard boxes have been used as they were much larger and could carry around 500 caps and bottles. Although most of these plastic bottles and caps would be used in the manufacturing process. It is certain that a small portion of them are not used or wasted. Which is what I will be counting in the next few steps. 

 

Current Tracker: 

 

-22500 plastic wrappers 

- 40 card boxes (0.7m * 0.7m *0.7m) 

 

After removing the plastic wrappers from the packages and unloading the bottles and caps. The manufacturing machine would also need the Vitamin C capsules in order to finish the production. However, these did not come in whole packages as they needed to be reconstructed into solid capsules from the mix they came in. When the ingredients of the capsule are ordered, they usually arrive in the form of a mix, which will be turned into the capsules at the factory. As a result, the initial packaging is removed after receiving. Comparing it to the packaging of the bottles and caps, the environmental impact of these packaging are much less as they use a huge plastic wrapper in each box instead of individual packaging. 

 

Step 2 at 11 A.M. - Getting prepared to assemble everything together 

 

After collecting all of the necessary products to manufacture Vitamin C supplements. The final procedure is to put everything in its corresponding position in a machine that could put a fixed amount of capsules in the bottle each time and sealing it with the caps. As this step does not require unwrapping or packaging anything, there would be no plastic consumption in the process. However, because the machine is not powered by people. It will consume electricity, which could create an environmental footprint on the environment. Although I do not know the electricity consumption the machine uses, we can use the formula below to find the electricity consumption if it was used for 3.5 hours 

 

Energy (kWh) = Power (kW) * Time (hours) / Efficiency 

 

We know that it was open for 3.5 hours and what is left is the power (kW) and efficiency. First, a typical machine used in manufacturing has an efficiency of 70%, which is One of the fixed variables in this equation. In my visit to this factory, I was unable to see the voltage or any power source requirements for that machine. In this case, we must assume a reasonable number to make this equation work out. usually for a machine of that size, the power in kilo wants used is around 500. Adding this to the equation we can get this formula:

 

Energy (kWh) = 20 * 3.5 / 80% 

 

Energy (kWh) = 87.5 (kWh)

 

However, since we assumed a for the power source of this machine this would become one of the limitations or assumptions we made during the calculation. making the reader understand these assumptions are extremely important as they could carry a much different meaning in the field of science. 

Therefore we can conclude that the energy consumption of producing at the step would be around 87.5 kWh which stands for kilowatt per hour. Although this is the biggest source of power consumption in the entire production process, there are also some other electricity consumption such as the opening of lights in the entire process, which are much harder to calculate. 

 

Step 3 at 3 P.M. - Packaging of the products for the consumers to receive 

 

When the Vitamin C is sealed and complete, the last step of production would be to assemble them for shipping in The next few days. In this process workers put a few dozen roads of finished supplement bottles into a cardboard box. After the completion of this step, they are sealed with tape and transported into a cargo box which will be shipped to the customers. In this step many cardboard boxes and rolls of tape are consumed. Meanwhile another big consumption in this procedure would be the cleaning of bottles and packed cardboard boxes. This is because Health Canada has big regulations on produced Medical Goods which actually includes Healthcare products and they are more related to Medicine as compared with food the streak regulation in this industry makes many procedures necessary to follow these regulations. In the end of each production bottles must be sanitized with alcohol wipes to ensure the  safety of consumption.

After the packaging of these products into cardboard boxes to ship for retail. The production of this supplement is complete but there are still some steps to follow such as cleaning the machines and used tools. Unfortunately, these steps were not recorded in my investigation as I ran out of time at the end of the day. 

 

The World Consumers: 

 

The growth in the supplements market has seen a significant growth since the early 21th century as the world's standard of living has increased. More people have shifted their focus from monetary wealth to their body's wellbeing. This shift in ideology created many business opportunities for the healthcare market. As a result of this, the consumers for Canadian health products have been spread around the world to almost every single continent and country. However, the effects of such globalization comes at the cost of great transportation costs. Many products that are produced in Canada and shipped to the rest of the world through either ships or planes, which creates CO2 during the operation. 

In the example of this company, most of the products produced are shipped to China, which is around 9 400 kilometers. Meanwhile, the only shipping method for this exchange would be from air because sea shipping cannot maintain the quality of supplements in the near 2 month journey. At the same time, air transportation is also one of the methods that create the most carbon dioxide emissions. In 2023, the International Energy Agency found that aviation accounted for 2.5% of global emissions. Comparing this data to cars in general, which is accounted for over 25%. However, we must understand that there are far more people traveling by air compared to ones by car. 

In this graph, we can see that there is a significantly more distance traveled by car in comparison with planes. It is also seen in this graph that there is a significant decrease of transportation during the covid years and slowly recovering after 2020. In recent years there is an increase in travel by air which may lead to future emissions. As a result of transporting supplements to another continent, the production of healthcare products in Canada releases emissions usually during transportation of these goods. Although there are some amounts of plastic generated in the production process, it is very likely that transportation in this industry is responsible for more carbon dioxide or Greenhouse emissions in the long run. This is because all of the materials need to be transported to the factory before it can be produced and then transported again after it is finished. 

 

Result of Investigation:

Reviewing my first few questions, the estimated amount of plastic used in the production of Vitamin C this week should use around 22300 plastic wrappings, majority of which comes from the initial step of production. At the same time, there are also around 70 cardboard boxes used in the process, which does not contribute to the total carbon emissions of producing this product compared to plastic wrappings which are not biodegradable.

In a different perspective, the result of this investigation gave me a comprehensive understanding of how the healthcare supplement industry works. The business model of this firm as well as the entire function of production is a valuable lesson to those who want to create their own startup in the future. During the short interviews with the staff, I understood some of the problems that occurred during production and the importance of teamwork in a factory job.

 

      Review 

 

The healthcare production industry has seen a significant increase in global orders in recent years as people transitioned to valuing monetary wealth to personal health. This increase in demand created many job opportunities as well as business potentials for people looking to pursue their career in this industry. As a result of all of this many brands and factories have opened with the following of this trend. Canada has a strong reputation in global markets for its safety and health, making supplements production in Canada has increased by over 500% over the last 5 years. Along with this increase in production, Health Canada increased its regulations on firms that produce these supplements to ensure the brand reputation and local reputation of goods and services maintained. All these increased procedures contributed more emissions are created as a result because the steps often include using single-use plastic and transporting multiple times around different locations.

Unfortunately, companies have realized their emissions in the process of producing supplements but fail to implement strategies to reduce waste because of its trade-offs with the company's interest. At the same time, governments have been trying to promote more environmentally friendly policies such as the carbon tax, which disincentivize companies to use plastic and other harmful chemicals. This trend in policies can be seen globally as countries like Canada try to reach Net Zero by 2030. Similarly to the trade-off between industrialization and economic development, companies usually face a similar decision when implementing new technologies in their systems. In the future, as more renewable technology is developed it is likely that these companies producing goods and services will switch to greener energy to produce in order to reduce their carbon footprint.

Although the process of manufacturing goods and services does not require an indigenous perspective. There are many traditional First Nations practices that could be implemented and discussed to help reduce the carbon emissions. In their long history, Indigenous people of Canada have long practiced sustainable harvesting of natural resources. In traditional Indigenous medicine, natural products like herbal remedies, plant extract, and minerals are often harvested in ways that will preserve biodiversity and maintain that environmental balance. Compared to the modern industrial extraction methods that could bring huge damages to the local environment including deforestation and deplete  natural resources. Indigenous communities follow practices such as harvesting only what is needed to prevent resource depletion, rotating harvest locations, and honoring the land. Oftentimes Indigenous communities are much smaller than urban cities which require less resources for a sustainable life, creating better natural environment practices. In the current world, industries often face high demand which could lead to the ignorance of environmental harm. At the same time, Indigenous communities value a circular economy, which means that everything should be reused. This practice can significantly reduce the amount of waste generated. For example in modern supplement, manufacturing generates large amounts of single-use plastic and cardboard waste through packaging and multiple production procedures. Unlike the modern world's approach to healthcare, Indigenous peoples approach health and well-being in a more diversified view. Modern supplements industries primarily focus on bringing isolated nutrient products to consumers. However the First Peoples of Canada also incorporates mental, emotional and spiritual well-being other than physical health, which are also extremely important. For example, many indigenous communities in Canada have traditional medicine that uses natural resources such as Cedar tea which comes from tree needles, wild berries and Spruce tips. All of these ingredients could be found in the wall without much industrial processes while still offering a significant amount of crucial nutrients needed by the human body. The incorporation of Indigenous perspectives into supplement production and the entire industry can lead to more sustainable practices and waste reduction as well as an improvement from just consuming isolated nutritions. 

There are several important limitations to my visit, some of which makes it not a proper scientific study. For example, I have only spent the day during the investigation which might lack diversification in my perspective. Another example of limitation would be the different products companies produce and the environmental effects of a simple product such as Vitamin C could not be used as a standard for all healthcare supplements. All of these factors should be taken into account because it will make the reader understand that there may be some inaccuracies in parts of this final investigation report.Therefore, I have created a list of limitations and how the results could be adjusted for a more scientific perspective. 

 

a) The lack of time spend during the investigation: 

When I started to conduct the investigation, I was only given a day to complete this project, I had to make notes of what happened during that day and complete my work in the following weeks.  As a result  of my limited visit, much of the reflection as well as the written procedure was done after the day of the investigation. I believe this is a limitation to my research because there may be some errors I ignored or forgot to add into this final report. At the same time, my interviews were also  abbreviated because I wanted to maximize the amount of time spent understanding how the factory runs and understanding the business model. With many intentions in my visits I was not able to complete some of them because of the limited time, therefore it limited my understanding of how this company works as well as my investigation report.

 

b)  The product produced during my visit

when I visited this Healthcare Factory during winter break, they were producing the vitamin D supplement which is one of the simpler products they have in production as a result of vitamin C simplicity, they're actually many other steps in other products production that requires the usage of plastic as well as other emissions in fact vitamin C should be one of the supplements with the least amount of carbon emissions and plastic uses because of how simple the order was in a typical order done by this factory, the workers would usually have to blend their own powder and make them into consumable tablets which is a very time consuming role is not used in the production of vitamin C. therefore the emissions in the process of producing this product is  very little compared to others making it the minimum amount of emissions created during a production of a product.

 

c) Different business model

In the factory that I visited, they focus on the Chinese market which  is usually not the business model many other firms use in Canada. the difference in these business models in an environmental perspective would be the amount of Transportation used to make their customers receive this product for example a Canadian firm focusing on the Canadian market will only need to transport their goods within the country Which is far more environmentally friendly compared to transporting it to another country on the other side of the world. As a result of this difference, this firm cannot defy the entire Industries emissions because it is on the higher side of Transportation because of his business model and customer location. In some further investigation, I found that most of the supplies given to these factories to produce non-finished complex goods are usually shipped from countries in Europe or Asia. This Intercontinental Transportation before the production of the supplements will create an even more carbon footprint which is a significant limitation to my research because it does not define the entire healthcare industry with high carbon emissions.

 

d) Limitations on the sources of information 

During my interview, I have only taken the perspective of employees in this company which could result in biases. However because this investigation is focused on the single firm, biases among these workers are unavoidable. Making it one of the most important limitations of this project.

 

Many perspectives were discussed in this investigation. During my interview most of my evidence in this investigation or from the perspective of people working in this industry. Supplement producers often prioritized cost efficiency and regulatory compliance when designing production processes. In interviews with staff at the supplement factory they mention that there are higher costs in sustainable materials, Health Canada regulations and logistics that prioritize affordability over sustainability. In a business's perspective it is important to minimize cost to not make the company go bankrupt, as a result of this many companies choose to use the cheapest materials they could find which are often not biodegradable or environmentally sustainable. At the same time I have also considered a scientific perspective which was the attempt to use more sustainable practices and reduce the carbon footprint of supplement production. Research in the environmental science in food production highlights that transportation of production of dietary supplements contributes significantly to global carbon emissions in a life cycle assessment of food. It was discovered that manufacturing unpackaging accounts for around 20 to 30% of the products carbon footprint, while transportation contributes to another 15%. However there have also been other studies suggesting that modernized supplement packaging minimizes contamination and extends the shelf life of these products. By reducing the risk of contamination research from Health Canada in 2023 suggests that single-use plastic containers prevent bacteria growth, ensuring supplements to remain effective throughout the distribution to worldwide customers. Making a trade-off between balancing sustainability and ensuring product safety.

 

There has been significant change to the healthcare production industry throughout the last 50 years. Historically, people relied on natural sources of vitamins and minerals rather than supplements to ensure their health. For example First People's traditional medicine played a critical role in early supplement use, they had a long history of using berries, cedar and spruce as natural sources of vitamin C. Another ancient civilization such as the Egyptian and Chinese use herbs to treat deficiencies and promote health. Then the rise of industrialized supplement production started in the early 20th century as scientific discoveries successfully identified that vitamins and other minerals are essential to human health. In 1912 the term vitamin was discovered after finding compounds essential for preventing diseases like scurvy and rickets. The start of World War II also accelerated supplemented nutrition for long and intense fighting missions. Later the FDA and Health Canada was established to create regulations and standardize supplement production to improve safety and efficiency. In the last 50 years supplements has transitioned to a multi-billion dollar global business with many brands and creating more effective products. The establishment of mass production facilities also started a reduction in cost but increase in plastic waste and energy consumption. During this time other technologies such as encapsulation also improved the supplement stability, which enhanced the consumer experience with supplements. Globalization also allowed ingredients from all over the world to be sourced and increased the carbon footprint of transportation. In the last decade the rise of e-commerce made supplements more accessible for consumers around the world.

 

The careers associated with  this investigation is very clear as the companies in this industry are constantly hiring qualified individuals who have done research in a post-secondary education in a related field. In Canada, hiring workers is a constant job because of the lack of working individuals in the country. many careers in this field include quality assurance and assistance, production supervisor, and office workers to look for orders around the world all of these jobs require leadership and knowledge in this industry, which is crucial for a successful business at the same time due to the growth in this market many firms in this market pays a higher than other industry salary to maintain their workers.

Outside of the healthcare industry, there are also work-related to help with renewable energy implementations. Which could be used in this industry to reduce carbon emissions. For many individuals with a post-secondary or a college degree, they could explore potential careers in being an engineer focusing on the development or maintenance of renewable energy implementations in different firms which could be in a healthcare factory for example. Although a post-secondary college degree would be useful for many highly skilled jobs, you can be involved in helping the environment with no background or prior experience. As renewable energy is a growing industry similar to healthcare production, many firms lack individuals therefore they are usually willing to help develop a skilled individual in their field as a personal investment to their workers. 

 

When I was investigating the environmental footprint of the supplement production, there was some bias involved that could influence the accuracy and outcome of my findings. Although the healthcare supplement industry has become, many supplement manufacturers do not publicly disclose their exact financials and environmental consumption. The lack of information in this industry becomes a problem when discovering an industry average. At the same time some companies may under report their environmental impact to maintain a positive brand image to their customers. Many of my investigations rely on estimates of the industry standard which could be inaccurate if some firms choose to under report over report their uses. The lack of transparency in this industry means that there may be some level of assumptions in my investigation. At the same time, much scientific research are funded by corporations which could have an influence on them. Some industry-funded reports usually under-report the environmental impact of some industries such as supplement production to maintain their profit. Other companies may promote greenwashing practices by marketing their products as sustainable without actually making a change to their production. For example a company may claim that its product uses biodegradable packaging that is eco-friendly but it may be a small portion of the product making the advertisement almost inaccurate. However we must understand there's an economic trade off with the environment because switching to biodegradable packaging is often environmentally beneficial but increases production costs. This was a common bias in my interviews for one of the reasons for not implementing biodegradable wrappings and other single use materials. My investigation into the environmental impacts of supplement production must consider potential biases from data limitations, the common method of industrial greenwashing, and the economic vs environmental trade-offs. It is important to critically evaluate the multiple sources of information and acknowledge that there may be potential biases in them through these methods.

 

In the investigation, a strong global connection is showcased as this is an international firm doing business with consumers and business partners all around the world. Before developing their appearance in the Chinese market, this firm focused on producing healthcare supplements for children in Africa, which was actually something I knew after the interview when I did additional research. As the world becomes more globalized, many firms will do business internationally and make global connections. For example in the production of this supplement. Vitamin C production often uses materials such as corn derived acid which are usually produced in India, China and the United States of America, which must be exported to Canada before production. At the same time the supplement industry contributes to global trade and economic development. As consumers and businesses become more globalized the supplement industry will shift towards a higher global connection in productions. 

 

During my short investigation I asked my question of whether reducing the waste and carbon emissions during the production is an important factor to this company. The answer I received was that environmental concerns are put in the very last priority during production, since this is something for humans to consume corporations often value the safety measures that could be used to prevent any safety issues for consumers. As a result of this, it usually comes at the cost of additional plastic uses and multiple procedures. However, we should take a multi-step strategy forward to reducing plastic waste in supplement packaging. As plastic waste from supplement packaging is a major environmental concern, companies still struggle to find cost-effective alternatives. Some strategies that should be considered are new technologies such as biodegradable packaging alternatives using lower technology such as corn starch based or mushroom-based materials. At the same time a policy could be implemented that supplement bottles could be refilled to make consumers return their emptied bottles for reuse instead of throwing them away. Germany has a similar policy for bottle return which actually turned the country into a much greener area. Meanwhile air transportation also remains to be a big footprint of the supplement industry as many materials are shipped from worldwide suppliers. Switching from air transportation to sea transportation will lower emissions but slower delivery. Companies could also establish regional production facilities to reduce the need for international shipping.
Another main environmental footprint I discovered in the investigation is the use of energy from both machines and lighting. Some strategies that could be considered for this problem would be implementing renewable energy such as installing solar panels or wind turbines to power the factory or switching to more energy efficient manufacturing machines. Although these investments might seem like a loss at the early stages, it might yield more return in the long run because it reduces the need of finding a power supplier. The application of these strategies in all parts of production, could reduce the environmental footprint significantly if it is possible for these firms to implement the strategies in production of healthcare supplements. 

[swansont]

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