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- In short: A Tasmanian startup is working to reduce the tonnes of waste from single-use plastics in hospitals by creating a closed-loop recycling program
- What's next? Healthcare staff say the scale of the problem is massive, but GreenMed is seeing success and will roll out another trial this year, this time in northern Tasmania
After years of working as a registered nurse, Brenton Lovering faced an unavoidable truth of the job — the health sector has a problem with plastic waste.
From sterilisation wrap to utensil packaging and medical gowns, most plastic items used in a medical setting are sent to landfill or incinerated to avoid contamination.
"As a nurse, I'd always accepted the waste as part of clinical care, and many of my colleagues would resonate with that message," Mr Lovering said.
"It was accepted that you just bag up the waste and away it goes — and that's all in the name of outstanding clinical care."
When he approached long-time friend Mat Usher to help find a solution, they were confronted with how to manage the scale of waste from within the sector.
"I'd spent very little time in hospitals prior to that," Mr Usher said.
"The waste that I saw firsthand coming out of the operating theatre, which is where we spend the majority of our time, was for me really shocking."
The duo are now rolling out an Australian-first pilot program, through their business GreenMed, at Calvary's Lenah Valley and St John's hospitals in Hobart to create a "closed loop" of medical plastic recycling.
Since launching in May, they have saved more than 1,000 kilograms of plastic from ending up in landfill.
The trial involves collecting sterilisation wrap, made from polypropylene, from the hospital's operating theatres and re-manufacturing it locally into other usable items.
"Once a sheet of that has done its job and it's maintained the sterility of the contents, it's discarded to landfill," Mr Lovering said.
"So, we identified that as a common, high-volume, high-quality plastic material that was inherently recyclable."
The pilot program is starting modestly, re-manufacturing the disposed-of wrap into plastic corners used to prop up trays in surgery.
But GreenMed said the success of the program had given it hope the scope of products produced could be expanded and rolled out interstate.
Sector supports more green initiatives
Calvary Hobart director of mission Tony Brennan said staff had advocated for more sustainable programs within the hospital for years, but the pandemic had stymied efforts to adopt them.
"There's so much waste that goes to landfill that comes out of this hospital, and right across the hospital, nurses and hospital assistants, everybody wanted to make a difference," Mr Brennan said.
"Before the pandemic, we did have some lines of diversion of plastics and PVC tubing and things like that, but the pandemic put paid to that.
"I think the Australian community, and certainly healthcare workers, are frustrated that it's very difficult to do something about single-use plastics."
Mr Brennan said Calvary planned to adopt the same pilot program at their Launceston hospital later this year.
Mr Usher said he hoped programs like this would inspire other hospitals to adopt similar measures.
"There haven't been options to date for hospitals to utilise their plastic for other plastics that they're using every day, so we're really proud to be able to bring them something where they can use waste for a greater purpose.
"When hospitals feel and see exactly the effects of their actions, I think that that's going to build a groundswell," he said.
LoadingFederal oversight needed for 'wicked problem'
Recycling medical plastic is complicated by the requirement that the waste is uncontaminated and sterile.
"I think one of the things is that so many people think that clinical waste is dirty, and therefore it can't be recycled. And to a certain extent, at the moment, that's relatively accurate," Mr Lovering said.
He said other programs in Australia to decontaminate medical waste included early-stage trials using UV and extreme heat to process the plastic.
So how much single-use plastic medical waste does the healthcare sector produce in Australia?
Measuring the scale of the problem is unfortunately difficult as there is no national body tallying waste from the sector.
The job of measuring plastic waste falls on states and territories, and this does not consider the private system.
Western Health's Forbes McGain said without federal oversight, solutions had to start from within the healthcare sector.
The long-time advocate for reducing plastic waste in the sector said sourcing reusable equipment was one simple solution hospitals could adopt.
Dr McGain said Western Health, based in Victoria, had reduced the number of medical gowns used from 900,000 between January 1 and June 30 in 2022 to 160,000 during the same period the next year, by switching to reusable gowns.
"But that's one item from one hospital in Australia — the scale of the problem is massive," Dr McGain said.
"The mere fact that you are providing something that you just chuck away after one use, which has a very … poor life cycle, or environmental footprint, is really an indictment on healthcare.
"It needs encouragement from governments, but a lot of it does require nuance and working with infection prevention — all of those important factors — because the last thing you want to do is increase the rates of infection in health care.
"So, I think it's something that requires multiple levels and is a bit of a wicked problem, but we can get there, it can be done."
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