What is the future of plastic medical consumables?
Single-use plastics will stay indispensable as they are easy to use and help to lower the chance of cross-contamination.
However, they come at cost of creating millions of tons of plastic (waste) with negative environmental impact.
In case of medical consumables, the potential of 3Rs is very limited:
- Reducing use – indispensable material widely used in healthcare, with no efficient substitute
- Reusing – cumbersome, prone to human errors and infection-risky
- Recycling – too many different materials used and limited due to cross-contamination
The solution to limit negative environmental impact might be in altering the materials used.
So far, most promising are PVC-free and bio-based CO2 neutral plastics.
