Plastics play a critical role in the delivery of safe and cost-effective medical devices, medications and healthcare services to patients around the world. Their rising usage in the healthcare sector has brought numerous advantages, such as lowering overall healthcare costs and enhancing patient safety. However, the predominance of single-use plastic products has also introduced substantial waste management challenges.
The healthcare industry is highly dependent on specialty single use plastic packaging to ensure sterility for medical devices and reduce the risk of infection. It is estimated that 32 billion pounds of healthcare plastics were manufactured globally in 2020, with projections indicating a rise to 48 billion pounds by 2025, with an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 tons globally of non-hazardous medical plastic entering the waste stream every day. Even though approximately 80-85% of the plastic waste generated in a healthcare setting is clean and non-hazardous, most of these materials are either sent to the landfill, incinerated or lost from the waste stream as plastic pollution.
This issue not only poses significant challenges for waste management but also represents a missed opportunity to reclaim valuable plastics for repurposing in other applications. Consequently, implementing a comprehensive recycling strategy is essential for mitigating the environmental footprint of plastic healthcare packaging.
Growing public concern over plastic waste has spurred initiatives aimed at transitioning to a circular economy model for plastics, focusing on enhancing recycling and reuse across various sectors, including medical packaging. Nevertheless, many healthcare facilities still lack the necessary infrastructure to recycle these materials effectively. Moreover, the diversity of plastics employed in healthcare settings has surged significantly since their initial introduction, designed to meet rigorous performance, quality, and safety standards. This complexity makes traditional mechanical recycling systems inadequate for processing these specialized materials and packaging.
What are the common recycling methods used today?
Mechanical recycling is the most prevalent method used to recycle plastics today. This process involves collecting and sorting plastics by their material type, followed by washing and grinding them into fine particles. These particles are then sold and transformed into pellets, which can be extruded or molded into new products and packaging.
However, there are several barriers that make mechanical recycling difficult for medical packaging used in a healthcare setting. These challenges include inadequate collection infrastructure, the diverse and intricate nature of packaging materials, and the widespread use of plastics like PETG and PS, which are not typically accepted by municipal recycling programs. Furthermore, the risk of contamination during mechanical recycling means that post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials are unsuitable for reuse in medical packaging, thereby limiting the healthcare industry's capacity to lessen its dependence on virgin plastics.
To effectively recycle complex healthcare plastic packaging, it's necessary to implement cutting-edge recycling technologies, often referred to as "advanced recycling" or "chemical recycling." These methods enable the collection and processing of more sophisticated medical packaging materials, effectively supplementing traditional mechanical recycling techniques.
What is Advanced Recycling?
Advanced recycling is an innovative approach that integrates both mechanical and chemical processes to manage plastic waste. This method breaks down plastic materials into secondary raw materials or recycled feedstock suitable for diverse plastic processing applications. Unlike mechanical recycling, which involves physical processes such as separating, grinding, washing, and melting while keeping the polymer structure intact, advanced recycling employs techniques that chemically alter the plastic's structure. By using chemicals or heat, advanced recycling decomposes plastics into their fundamental components, producing new materials that closely resemble virgin plastics. Common advanced, or chemical, recycling techniques can be categorized into three main types:
- Purification / Solvent Extraction: This method employs solvents to separate plastic polymers from additives, colorants, odors, and other substances or resins. The resulting purified polymer can then be converted into new plastic resin. It's important to note that this technology requires a separated and uniform stream of a specific type of plastic.
- Decomposition/Depolymerization: This method utilizes a combination of chemistry, solvents, and heat to break down the molecular bonds in plastics, converting them into monomers that can be reconstituted into new plastics. Similar to purification, the materials must be sorted into a single type. A notable advantage of this technique is that it preserves the plastic's inherent properties, enabling it to be recycled repeatedly without degradation.
- Thermal Conversion: This innovative process leverages chemistry, heat, or catalytic reactions in a reactor to break down plastic waste into either gaseous products through gasification or liquid feedstock via pyrolysis. By applying high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment, thermal conversion disassembles plastics into their fundamental molecular components. The resulting liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons can be repurposed for fuels or as feedstock for new plastics. Unlike other recycling techniques, thermal conversion can handle more complex mixtures of plastic and polymer types, making it a versatile solution for recycling diverse healthcare plastics.
What are the benefits of Advanced Recycling?
Growing consumer and legislative demands for more sustainable and recyclable packaging solutions, combined with the increasing reliance on plastics in healthcare, have amplified the need for innovative recycling methods. These methods must not only tackle hard-to-recycle plastics but also produce high-quality, virgin-like materials suitable for packaging applications. Emerging advanced recycling technologies offer a number of benefits to the market, including:
- Recycle hard-to-recycle plastics: Mechanical recycling infrastructure and capabilities impose significant constraints on the variety of plastics that can undergo recycling. Advanced recycling, on the other hand, unlocks the potential to reclaim valuable materials that would otherwise be relegated to landfills, incinerators, or contribute to environmental pollution. Moreover, certain advanced recycling methods streamline the recycling process in healthcare environments by requiring less pre-sorting, thereby simplifying operations and enhancing efficiency.
- Reduce waste to landfill: Since 2017, the industry has announced more than 40 projects with the potential to divert nearly 21 billion lbs of waste from landfill per year.
- Produce high-quality PCR materials: Advanced recycling techniques allow for the separation of the polymeric material from additives, colorants, odors and other contaminants to produce a high-quality virgin-like product for use in a variety of applications including food packaging.
- Reduce reliance on virgin plastics: The Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council estimates that there is a $120 billion addressable market in the US and Canada for plastics. The growing need for plastic coupled with the demand for increased sustainability and recyclability in packaging means that the need for recycled materials will continue to expand to meet market needs in a way that reduces reliance on virgin plastics.
- Reduce Carbon Footprint: Advanced or chemical recycling techniques can eliminate the emissions from incineration and energy recovery, as well as reduce use fossil fuel consumption to produce new plastics.
Designing for Recyclability:
While the use of plastics in healthcare has led to numerous lifesaving advancements, the resultant waste must be managed efficiently to support a circular economy for plastics. By leveraging a comprehensive recycling system that incorporates both mechanical and advanced recycling methods, these materials can be repurposed for new applications, thereby reducing landfill waste and diminishing the reliance on virgin plastic. Medical, pharmaceutical, and healthcare companies aiming to enhance the sustainability and recyclability of their packaging should therefore adopt design-for-recyclability strategies to ensure their packaging integrates seamlessly into the circular economy for plastics.