Pharmafilter and Grontmij jointly won one of the three awards of the annual EEP Award Netherlands in 2008. Minister Cramer of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, announced the winners on 3 April 2008 at the professional Industry & Environment fair.
The three winners of the Dutch preliminaries will move on to the European competition.
 
Collaboration
The ‘Pharmafilter: submission (waste) water management system for hospitals by Pharmafilter and Grontmij’ was realised in collaboration with the Reinier de Graaf Groep general hospital in Delft.

Waste and waste water in hospitals
Pharmafilter is a concept that brings together the various waste and waste water flows in hospitals.
The waste water flow also contains solid waste, such as bio-plastics and kitchen waste. The innovation is actually two-fold: the application of bio-plastics for bedpans, urinals and other single-use items as well as their processing in the hospital itself. The concept utilises multiple technologies, including a membrane bio-filter and ozonisation.
 
Minimising the waste flow
Using Pharmafilter minimises the waste flow of hospitals. This is important due to the presence of (residues of) medication, disinfectants, pathogenic bacteria, viruses and the like in the waste and
the waste water. The risks of dumping hospital waste in sewers receives ever more attention, and rightly so.
 
European environmental journals
The EEP Award is an initiative of the European Environmental Press (EEP), a partnership of European environmental journals. The Dutch member of this group is MilieuMagazine. EEP uses this award to express recognition for and encourage the innovative efforts of the European environmental sector.
 
Submissions
A jury assessed 25 submissions on the basis of five criteria: innovative level (the innovation itself), extent of progress, significance of the innovation for solving an environmental problem, cost-effectiveness and originality. The other winners of the award were City Cargo Amsterdam and the joint submission of Philips Lighting and NAM (Nederlandse Aardoliemaatschappij).