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.