Accelerating action on environmental sustainability in Healthcare

Paulo Cavacas, business development manager, Borealis, explains the push for environmental sustainability in the healthcare sector and the contributions from Borealis.

The vital role of plastic solutions in healthcare became even more prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic with many single-use medical devices, pharma packaging, diagnostic consumables and masks being used–now not only used by medical personnel, but have become an essential of daily life.

Yet the associated carbon emissions and wastefulness inherent in today’s linear economy in the healthcare sector needs to change. Healthcare’s climate footprint is equivalent to 4.4% of global net emissions, which represents 2 giga tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, meaning if the health sector were a country, it would be the fifth-largest emitter on the planet.

In the past few years, pharma and medical OEMs have increasingly embraced their role in the fight against climate change and have been developing their sustainability strategies. Pledges for carbon and plastic neutrality were made; many included Scope 3 emissions in their targets and started to consider using more sustainable raw materials for existing applications or new design developments. However, what does more sustainable or eco-friendly really mean?

A future-positive revolution for plastics

Polyolefins (polyethylene-PE and polypropylene-PP) have frequently been used in healthcare as an alternative product to glass and metal, but also to other plastics due to their combination of good property profiles and value in use, as well as often offering a better sustainability profile by being lighter, easier, safer to use, chemically inert and recyclable. Borealis, a polyolefin resin manufacturer, has embarked on a sustainability journey by taking a broader view at the circular economy for plastics via its circular cascade(Figure 1) – not only looking into the technical cycle by incorporating Design for Recycling or Reuse principles and mechanically or chemically recycling end products of these streams, but also by replacing fossil-based feedstocks with renewable-based ones that do not compete with agricultural crops for food and livestock feed.

The Design for Recycling challenge in Healthcare

Some healthcare applications today already follow the principles of Design for recycling and incorporate mono material solutions such as 100% PE infusion bottles or bottles for irrigation solutions. Interestingly, the large majority of waste produced by the healthcare sector (approximately 85%) is actually non-hazardous and similar to post-consumer waste i.e. much of it can be recycled. However, recycling hospital waste even if not hazardous or contaminated, poses a separate challenge to hospital staff in terms of collecting and sorting such waste.

Consumer health is the segment where increased awareness for environmentally sustainable solutions is more pressing. Particularly in oral solid dosage products,consumers tend to regard such packaginglikeany other and require similar recycling solutions. Blister packaging is omnipresent in every single household and it became the priority for many pharmaceutical companies to replace commonly used PVC/Al structures by recyclable ones.

For more than 20 years, Borealis has offered a Bormed PP medical grade as an alternative route for blisters - Designed for Recycling - while keeping the packaging integrity, drug safety and shelf life intact.

Closing the loop on plastic waste

Borcycle is the Borealis portfolio of recycling technology solutions giving polyolefin-based, post-consumer waste another life.Specifically interesting for the healthcare industry is the Borcycle C line, converting plastic waste that typically goes to incineration or even worse, landfill, to virgin quality materials and thus closing the loop even for difficult-to-recycle plastic waste.

Renewable-based circular polyolefins

Recycling post-consumer plastic waste is not enough to truly transform the polyolefin industry and its environmental impact. Already at the beginning of 2020 Borealis achieved a milestone on the journey to replacing fossil fuel-based feedstocks in a large-scale commercial production by launching the Bornewables  solutions:Circular polyolefins produced with renewable feedstock derived entirely from waste and residue streams. The Bornewables offer the same material performance and regulatory compliance as virgin polyolefins, but with a reduced carbon footprint and decoupled from fossil-based feedstock.

Proven reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

Making decisions based on life cycle assessment (LCA) is crucial to have a fact-based analysis and a clear path forward to implementing more environmentally sustainable materials.The cradle-to-gate LCA conducted on the Bornewables has shown that renewable-based polyolefins contribute towards the mitigation of climate change by providing significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions (at least 120% reduction) compared to polyolefins made from fossil-based feedstock. This means, that when replacing one tonne of conventional PP with Bornewables, 2.1 tonnes of CO2-eqare saved. This is comparable to the greenhouse gas emissions of 3 return flights from London to Beijing

Why is mass balance key to bringing circularity forward? Enabling visible progress now

The change to using recycled and renewable feedstock is not as simple as flipping a switch. It is a journey. Chain of custody models can help move forward by increasing the proportions of sustainable feedstocks that areused. Specifically, Borealis believes that the mass balance model offers the greatest set of benefits and the best path to visible progress for circular plastics, while building stakeholder trust in the right chain of custody model. It helps the whole value chain to track, trace and verify the sustainability of the renewable feedstocks and end-products throughout the chain to make it more visible and tangible. Thus, the Bornewables and Borcycle C solutions are offered on an ISCC Plus certified mass balance model.

The importance of medical grades

When considering incorporatingmore sustainable solutions in a medical device, diagnostic consumable or a pharmaceutical packaging, healthcare producers need the assurance that the materials they qualify for use today,can also be used for years to follow. This means, for instance, reliability of supply, receiving a formulation lock-down commitment, proper change management and extended notification period, appropriate pharmacopeia testing results and US FDA DMF registration from the raw material supplier. All of this and more is at the core of the Borealis service package offered with the Bormed medical polyolefin grades.

The introduction of the Bornewables and Borcycle C solutions in existing Bormed products does not affect product performance nor does it represent formulation change, as the hydrocarbons produced by renewable or chemically recycled streams are indistinguishable from the ones derived from crude oil feedstock.

Industry cooperation for a more sustainable future

At Borealis we believe in the circular revolution: A revolution that’s world-critical and urgent. Because today we take, we make, we dispose and this is linear, wasteful and unsustainable. The whole healthcare industry needs to work together to find ways to reduce, reuse and recycle and to decouple from fossil-based production to lead the transformation of the plastic value chain from linear to circular.