Plastic from Sharps Waste: The Green Shoots of … Recycling?
The healthcare industry lags behind other sectors in terms of plastic recycling — heavy regulation forces hospitals to incinerate biohazardous waste. But surging through the smog of burnt plastic comes ecoFinity Life Cycle Solution, an award winning closed loop recycling scheme from BD in the USA which recovers, recycles and reuses up to 70% of a facility’s sharps waste. Sam Anson, a self confessed recycling nerd, spoke to Ranjeet Banerjee, vice president and general manager of BD’s Medical Surgical Systems unit — the man behind their scheme.
A Late Developer
Conventionally, the question of how to handle medical waste has always been simple — incinerate anything hazardous and send the rest to landfill.
Environmentally responsible healthcare professionals have probably queried this broad-brush approach. But in terms of plastic recycling, the industry lags far behind other sectors, particularly food and drink packaging and electronic goods — which both have well-established recycling schemes.
What observers may not realise is that there are significant economic benefits to plastics recycling which are yet to be untapped in the healthcare industry. A healthy price for recycled plastic allows compounders to purchase sorted clean plastic flakes from waste management companies, melt them down, repelletise them and still make a healthy profit when they’re sold on for use in non-medical applications. And the large volumes involved in the medical industry mean that additional costs required for the sterilisation of biohazardous waste can comfortably be incorporated into the margins.
That said, in order for a supply chain like this to flourish, plastic must be diverted from the waste stream as soon after use as possible. Achieving this involves a change of culture in persuading regulators and hospital managers to allow recyclers to handle sterilised sharps waste and other medical plastics.
Green Revolution
The new scheme from BD (Becton Dickinson and Company) is inspirational. Sharps waste is collected, disinfected, shredded and reprocessed and the regenerated plastic pellets are utilised as material to manufacture new plastic products which not need to be made from virgin plastic.
But what is perhaps most astonishing is the sheer scale of BD’s progress. Ranjeet Banerjee confirms: “In just one year our BD ecoFinity programme has collected over one million pounds [454 tonnes] of material destined for landfill or incineration. Some of the recycled plastic is being used to manufacture new BD Recykleen sharps collection containers.”
The programme has been in operation for almost three years but it started from a relatively small base. Ranjeet explains: “BD aims to give our customers comprehensive solutions. We want to offer them products of a high standard clinically which incorporate environmental benefits without incurring incremental costs. Our BD ecoFinity recycling programme offers an eco-friendly improvement to existing supply agreements.”
Robust and reliable — a safe process
The biggest barrier to the scheme was a perceived risk among healthcare professionals around toxicity. Ranjeet’s attitude to this is reassuring: “To do this well and to do it reliably requires expertise, and it must be done extremely carefully. We have invested a lot of time and care working with our waste management partner in ensuring that the process is robust and is carried out safely. As I said earlier, our goal was to create an environmental solution without compromising cost or clinical safety.”
When selling medical sharps to its customers, BD offers to arrange for them to be collected after use using a similar process to the customer’s current process. After collection, the waste is disinfected, shredded and the plastics are granulated into confetti-like “flakes” before being melted down and compounded into new pellets.
Rapid Adoption
Judging by the volumes recovered already, the scheme is enjoying rapid uptake by BD’s customers. “Some of our biggest customers are already on board,” said Ranjeet. “Rady Children’s Hospital in California was the first to adopt it. DaVita, a leading provider of kidney care in the USA, have enrolled, and New York City-based Montefiore Medical Center, a prestigious leading healthcare institution, has had over 348,500 pounds [159 tonnes] of sharps regulated medical waste collected and processed since their pilot scheme began in August 2011.”
BD is undoubtedly leading the way here. But it’s a clear understanding of plastic recycling and the medical device market that has got them to where they are. “Our partner, Waste Management Inc, has brought a lot of expertise to the table, and we continue to add to our team. We have people who have tremendous technical competencies in plastics and in life cycle analysis (LCA).”
So what’s next for BD on the eco–front? Ranjeet believes in “greening” medical products. “We are working from a mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle — we are reducing the amount of material which goes into our products, we are identifying where we can reuse valuable natural resources in our manufacturing sites — three of our sites in the US are producing products with 100% renewable electricity — and we are providing a real option to recycle through BD ecoFinity.”
BD is an active member of USA-based members group Practice Greenhealth, one of the sponsoring organisations of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative. The Healthier Hospitals Initiative is a US-wide association with the goal of encouraging healthcare organisations to consider sustainable business models with an awareness of their impact on the environment.
The BD ecoFinity Life Cycle Solution is a trademark of BD which has been registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office. BD Recykleen is a trademark of BD.