Medical consumables: Will the pandemic inspire more sustainable practices?

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a global increase in healthcare commodities and medical consumables: demand for face masks, gloves, protective apparel, and other personal protective equipment has soared as a result. This also applies to rapid tests, reagents, laboratory equipment and supplies. But all this sparked a myriad of problems.

Back at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, masks and protective gear were hard to get since nobody was fully prepared for the highly contagious SARS-CoV-2 virus. At hospitals, employees were forced to use disposable items such as KN 95 masks more than once to warrant at least a minimum level of protection. At the same time, research facilities tested ways of cleaning and processing masks without ruining their protective effect.

By now, we collectively have an adequate stock of personal protective equipment available because global production has ramped up to meet the increased demand. In many countries, the general population now has easy access to both surgical and the more effective KN 95 masks. Given all these unprecedented developments, we must ask ourselves: What should we do with the waste caused by COVID-19?

Discarded face masks often do not make it to the trash and end up on the street or in green areas. COVID-19 has had environmental effects, mostly due to the increased pandemic-related plastic waste. Joana Correia Prata from Portugal’s University of Aveiro studies the issue: "Our research group has estimated that in 1 year, the use of disposable masks by the public, excluding health-care settings, generates 3.5 million metric tons of additional plastic waste.”

The plastic waste also ends up in our oceans, causing harm to marine life. A study by the Arizona State University in the PNAS Journal uses a model to quantify the impact and estimates that “8.4 ± 1.4 million tons of pandemic-associated plastic waste have been generated from 193 countries as of August 23, 2021, with 25.9 ± 3.8 thousand tons released into the global ocean."

To get this problem under control, the healthcare sector, too, must find ways to reduce waste brought on by disposable products such as face masks and gloves. In this setting, we should first consider safe disposal methods, though these can only be implemented outside the medical realm if the respective products can be collected in an efficient manner in the public area. Solutions might include central collection points like those for household batteries and electronic devices.

This also ties in with proper recycling processes. Medical waste is typically incinerated to avoid potential health hazards. Unfortunately, this also destroys any raw materials in the items that could be reused. The Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT has developed an innovative recycling process for used masks that also neutralizes hazardous material: "We used pyrolysis to convert the masks to oil. That means we thermochemically converted the masks at around 650 degrees Celsius in the absence of oxygen. This process produces -among other things - pyrolysis oil,” explains Dr. Alexander Hofmann in a MEDICA-tradefair.com interview. The recovered pyrolysis oil can subsequently be used as raw material to make new plastics.

The pandemic should make us rethink how we manage disposable medical equipment. The disruptions to the supply chain at the pandemic’s onset have shown us that we must be better prepared for future global health emergencies, but these efforts should not worsen existing problems such as environmental pollution, which can cause added health problems for people across the globe. After all, the microplastics, waste, and harmful substances that end up in our oceans will eventually find their way back on our plates.

Yet environmental pollution goes beyond health hazards. Future medical disposables must also emphasize sustainable resource management - even as it pertains to more complex products that are composed of multiple materials, such as disposable catheters. While the recovery of resources through recycling is a great practice, it would be even better if manufacturing processes use bioplastics made from renewable sources right from the start.

Regardless of when and how the current pandemic will end, it could inspire a more sustainable era of consumption in medical technology around the world.