Circular flows of plastic and textiles in healthcare
The healthcare sector is a major consumer of disposable plastic products, a high-quality stream that currently only goes to energy recovery. One possible reason for not addressing these flows is that disposable plastics are used for medication dosing or in close-to-body applications, making them hazardous waste. However, this overlooks a significant portion that is not hazardous waste and could potentially be recycled. The exact size of this portion is not known today and partly depends on the recycling technology used.
To make risk-free plastic accessible, it's necessary to sort the plastic already at the hospital departments, which is possible because the staff is proficient at sorting by risk level. The project aims to identify business models and product designs with the potential to promote separate collection and recycling of plastic and textiles from the healthcare sector. In this project, we focus on practical collection and recycling trials of polypropylene (PP) for mechanical recycling because mechanical recycling is available on an industrial production scale.
Collection trials take place at several selected departments in a hospital within Region Skåne, where PP products are collected. By conducting larger collection trials, the project will be able to evaluate real volumes of risk-free plastic as well as real quality assessment of the collected and recycled plastic, and gather information on the actual costs of separate handling of plastic for recycling. This provides valuable information for the business models the project aims to develop. Additionally, it provides an opportunity for hospitals to evaluate how sorting affects other work and develop practical solutions for separate collection if they choose to continue with this practice.
In addition to collection efforts, there will be an attempt to recycle the collected plastic with accompanying pre-washing. The recycled plastic will be evaluated to determine which products it can be used for, and if possible, a prototype will be manufactured. The evaluation of the plastic quality from the recycling attempt will serve as the basis for design proposals for better recycling of tested plastic products and also purchasing guides.
The main focus of the project is to evaluate mechanical recycling, but other recycling methods that deliver a high-quality product such as chemical and thermochemical recycling will also be considered and used as reference cases.
Project goals
- Practical collection and sorting of plastic in a hospital environment.
- Evaluation of the recycled plastic, identifying the relevant products it can be used for.
- Experience-based proposal for the design of a value chain for the collection and recycling of healthcare plastic, including logistics.
- Proposals for design changes to improve product recycling, developed in consultation with the entire value chain to enable implementation.
- Proposals for business models supporting increased circularity of plastic and textiles within the healthcare sector, developed in consultation with the entire value chain to enable implementation.
Time period
2024-05-01 – 2025-10-31
Participating parties
RISE, Region Skåne, Regionservice, Reelab, BD, Borealis, Hammarplast Medical, Mölnlycke Health Care, Regionutveckling Skåne, Rondo Plast
Total budget
1 591 000 SEK
Kontakta insatsområdesledaren
