The medical plastics sector is facing growing pressure to become more sustainable, and there’s plenty of room for progress.
In the August Sustainable Plastics Live, Karen Laird highlighted stories from the new issue of Sustainable Plastics magazine, which took a deep dive into the healthcare market.
Recycling of medical plastics is still in the early stages, in part because of concerns about contamination. But Laird noted that 85 percent of medical plastics are not contaminated.
To date, the medical market isn’t facing looming requirements to use or recycled their plastics, but carbon neutrality goals, at least, mean the plastics supply chain will need to change, she said.
“I think that there’s a lot of there are certain overarching goals, like, we all want to be have zero emissions by 2050, that sort of thing,” Laird said.
“And in Europe, at least, we have, of course, the new plastic packaging and waste regulation. But medical and pharmaceutical have been exempted from complying with this [until later]. But still, what’s interesting is you can see that these companies are still trying anyway, to find ways to become more sustainable and to reduce their carbon emissions, simply because their customers have to.”
The next Sustainable Plastics livestreams are scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 5, and Tuesday, Oct. 1.