Cutting healthcare plastics could save $18B

Healthcare organizations generate large quantities of recyclable single-use plastics, but face unique challenges, said panelists during a recent webinar from Eunomia Research and Consulting. 

Building off a report from Eunomia and systems change firm Systemiq, the webinar A Prescription for Change explored the environmental and financial impacts of single-use plastics in medical facilities and provided strategies to help accelerate progress in the circularity space.

As of 2023, the healthcare system used 2.1 million metric tons of single-use plastics, said Yoni Shiran, partner at Systemiq, during the webinar. If the healthcare industry continues to operate under “business as usual” practices, annual healthcare plastic waste volumes could rise 35-40% by 2040, he added.  

Unlike for some packaging applications, plastic is uniquely suited for medical uses because of sterility requirements, but is often exempt from state-level regulations addressing plastic waste. This is exacerbated by a fragmented US system of responsibility as well as rising procedural and demographic demand, Shiran said.  

Seven product categories make up most of the single-use plastic consumption in healthcare: fluid bags and tubing (23%), gloves (22%), rigid devices (14%), device packaging (14%), PPE (12%), wipes (8%) and pharmaceutical packaging (8%). And most of the associated emissions and costs come from upstream processes, the report said. 

“Healthcare has been largely outside most conversations around circularity and decarbonization to date,” Shiran said, adding that legislation such as California’s SB 54 and Europe’s packaging and packaging waste regulation has exempted healthcare waste from programs meant to curb plastic waste. And activists from non-governmental organizations have largely avoided the medical sphere due to sensitivity concerning patient health and safety, he said. 

Without effecting systemic change, the negative impacts of single-use plastics in healthcare will grow more severe, he said, putting more pressure on public budgets, waste streams and climate outcomes. However, he added that if the strategies put forward by the report were scaled, health systems could cut single-use plastics waste by 53% by 2040, and save $18 billion a year, or 24%.

One example of a local solution is the “Glove Smart” campaign at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia. Following a post-Covid surge in glove usage – up to 33,000 gloves each month in the intensive care unit – the facility launched an education-based pilot that ultimately reduced noncompliant glove usage by 53%. 

Moreover, in 2023, Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital and intravenous fluid (IV) bag maker Baxter completed a three-year pilot to collect and recycle IV bags made of polyvinyl chloride, with plans to expand it to other hospitals and maintain it at Northwestern Memorial. Baxter also has worked with Orbia’s Vestolit business to expand collection and recycling of non-hazardous IV bags in Colombia. 

Navigating roadblocks to circularity

The competing priorities common to medical facilities have stood in the way of efforts to reduce plastic waste in hospital settings, said Hardeep Singh, chief of health policy, quality and informatics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “There’s always some other fire burning to put out,” such as financial pressures, or a pandemic. 

But attaining buy-in from clinicians is a good start, he said. “A lot of them don’t understand the implications and ramifications of all this plastic waste. Even though they see it they don’t know what to do about it, and we need to empower them.” 

Rachel Meidl, deputy director and fellow in energy and sustainability at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, said adoption of sustainable plastic practices is being held back by a mix of regulatory, market and cultural barriers. 

Fragmented legislative policy also causes inconsistencies and makes confident investment far more difficult, she said. In addition, the healthcare sector is traditionally risk-averse, potentially made worse by inconsistent market signals. 

Jason Fischer, director of the office of sustainability at Houston Methodist, said his organization looks at how to make processing and sorting recyclable items without sacrificing efficiency. In addition, the vast but far-flung Houston Methodist network must make sure it can aggregate enough post-use materials to make them valuable as a commodity. Smaller organizations could develop regional networks and partnerships to help realize the end-market opportunities for recyclable plastics, he said.  

To build worker buy-in, Fischer recommended recruiting “champions” to lead and advocate for plastic waste reduction across the hospital system, choosing those most passionate about the effort. He also cautioned against trying to do too much at once, suggesting instead that hospitals target the low-hanging fruit by focusing on areas with the biggest impact.

Perhaps even more so than in other industries, healthcare settings are extremely cost-conscious, exacerbating the existing objections of using post-consumer resin instead of cheaper virgin resin. 

Making the business case for recycling plastics and for using recycled resin requires consistent, high-quality data on the types, volumes and fates of plastics, Meidl said. “There’s limited visibility” as to what plastics are used and what is recovered, but gaining a better understanding could inform better decisions, she said, suggesting supply chain mapping to show where various impacts occur.

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