OWI was founded in Hamburg in 1954 with a staff of 4, but today this company has more than 480 employees. At the core of the international business sector of rigid endoscopy within the Olympus group, OWI has developed into a center of competence for the development, production, sales and service of medical endoscopes. In an environmental activity, in one of our important product groups, if you see it on a quantity basis, are the sterile packed HF-electrodes. Before the actual sterilization process for these HF* electrodes1 takes place they are subject to a special cleaning procedure. Within the framework of this special cleaning procedure we use ethanol. We are forced to exchange this at regular intervals in order to ensure the cleanness.Based on detailed tests we were able to double the exchanging cycle of the ethanol without having any loss of quality. So far we have had the possibility to clean 2000 HF-electrodes within one cycle, but now we can increase it to 4000 HF-electrodes. Due to this measure we can lower the ethanol consumption by about 50%.The outcome of this is a reduction of approximately 400 kilo (500 liter) of ethanol which needs not to be purchased and later on, disposed of. Thereby we have had a double effect. By this measure and with reference to the total consumption of ethanol for 2004 we consume roughly 9% less, compared with the 2003 figure. * HF= High Frequency R&D Business, Project Engineer, Mr. Thomas Reher (L) and Head of Regulatory Affairs, Mr. Bruno Soltau (R) Cleaning process of HF - electrodes before sterilization.