Care - Circular flows of plastic & textiles in healthcare

The healthcare sector is a major consumer of plastic disposable products, a high-quality stream that currently only goes to energy recovery. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 85% of the total waste stream from healthcare is non-hazardous and thus potentially suitable for recycling. 

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.

Practical collection and recycling experiments of polypropylene (PP) will be conducted. Collection trials will take place in a number of selected departments at a hospital within Region Skåne. By conducting larger collection trials, the project will be able to evaluate real volumes of non-hazardous plastic as well as real quality assessment of the collected and recycled plastic, as well as gather information on actual costs for the separate handling of plastic going for recycling.

In addition to collection trials, a recycling trial of the collected plastic will be conducted with accompanying pre-wash. The recycled plastic will be evaluated for which products it can be used, and if possible, a prototype will be made. The evaluation of plastic quality from the recycling trial will form the basis for design proposals for better recycling of tested plastic products and for procurement guides. This will be done in close collaboration with medtech companies and regions.

An important result of the project is proposals for business models based on different scenarios. Thanks to the wide composition of partners in the project, almost all parts of the value chain are represented. The partners together with the information from the practical experiments will ensure that the business models have a real grounding and greater potential for implementation