Are medical plastics a vast untapped business opportunity for hospitals and recyclers? Alison Bryant thinks so. A consultant with international engineering and environmental consultancy Antea Group and Communications Director for the Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council, Bryant made the case in a recent article published in Recycling Today . Robert Render, Commercial Manager at Ravago Recycling Group, concurs. They will participate in a panel discussion on the merits of healthcare plastics recycling, along with medical packaging professionals, at the co-located PLASTEC and Medical Design and Manufacturing (MD&M) event in Minneapolis next month.
Medical-grade plastics, by definition, are high-quality materials with little variance in properties such as melt flow, viscosity and tensile strength, and that makes them especially valuable for recyclers, notes Bryant. “These plastics are generated continuously with very little change in composition over time, meaning they are a reliable, high-quality stream coming from willing and eager providers,” she writes in her article, “Healthcare plastics: Untapped feedstock, untapped business opportunity.”