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Hospital Takes Aim at Plastic Recycling

Can the healthcare industry really recycle? One hospital’s journey is showing that with concerted effort, it is possible. But it requires stakeholder cooperation.

Low recycling rates are a common problem at hospitals worldwide, where single-use products, double-wrapping and complex composites are the norm. Credit: Michael Harder.
Low recycling rates are a common problem at hospitals worldwide, where single-use products, double-wrapping and complex composites are the norm. Credit: Michael Harder.

[This story originally ran 2/22/2018]

At Aarhus University Hospital (AUH) in the central region of Denmark, Susanne Backer and her colleagues had a tough job ahead of them. “Lots of people and organizations want to reduce plastic,” the project leader for circular economy said in her presentation at Pharmapack Europe. “But the effort has to be valuable or it won’t live long.”

AUH conducted more than 100,000 surgeries in 2016 and currently employs approximately 10,000 people.In 2017, AUH generated approximately 3,300 metric tons of waste, with the following breakdown:

  • Waste to energy – 79%

  • Recycled – 20%

  • Landfill – 1%

Low recycling rates are a common problem at hospitals worldwide, where single-use products, double-wrapping and complex composites are the norm. Some express the feeling that the lack of recycling is an unfortunate but necessary effect of sterility and patient safety. But Backer is working to challenge that concept and improve recycling rates while upholding safety and hospital efficiency.

Project goals

Backer and her team set out to increase recycling and the circular economy of the hospital’s plastic packaging waste, recycling 70% of waste by 2030, with 29% wasted to energy and 1% waste to the landfill.

Backer said, “The questions we ask—and you may not like them—are ‘How do we avoid using packaging at all? How do we reduce packaging? Or how do we recycle packaging?’”

She cited an example in which some products come in an overwrap. This extra layer is useful; it prevents evaporation and helps keep the product sterile. “But we require a shelf life of 36 months, yet some aren’t in the hospital for two weeks. Can we rethink our demands on product shelf life and then reduce plastic weight and costs? And ease the nurses’ workload because they have to do less unpacking?”

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