MATERIALS | PVC RECYCLING
Right: Although medical waste is routinely discarded and incinerated, there are several
schemes to recycle PVC in hospitals
He says that the biggest barrier to post-consum-
er recycling is getting value-chain participants to build the infrastructure that is needed to make it happen.
It aims to help bring this barrier down and build momentum by growing membership in the pro- gramme, which will bring together recyclers, those who can serve as collection sites and other inter- ested supporters. Its website also provides a way for consumers, contractors, and construction demoli- tion companies to find recycling collection points, which will increase as the programme expands.
Medical recycling At last year’s Medical Tubing event in the USA – or- ganised by AMI – Tobias Johnsen, communications manager at PVC Med Alliance, told delegates that PVC accounts for around 27% of all medical polymers in Europe and around 31% of medical tubing – the largest share. He added that a growing number of schemes are collecting and mechani- cally recycling medical PVC waste. “PVC is fit for mechanical recycling,” he said. “It can withstand 8-10 thermal cycles for rigid PVC and at least four for flexible PVC.” Recycling is aided by the fact that many PVC consumables are single-layer products, he said. PVC waste can be turned into other durable
products for the health sector, such as hospital wall coverings, flooring, training mannequins and rehabilitation equipment, said Johnsen. Countries including Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa, Canada and the US all have schemes that collect and recycled PVC medical waste. VinylPlus Med, a scheme launched in Belgium in
2022, has a network of 29 hospitals – with 30 more on a waiting list. The scheme is being extended to France and will include collection of products made of flexible PVC (such as tubing and bags) and rigid PVC.
Johnsen also cited a lifecycle analysis (LCA) of
PVC medical tubing in Europe, carried out by Ecovamed, which showed that mechanical recy- cling reduced carbon dioxide emissions by around 25% compared with incineration. VinylPlus has also commissioned Aimplas of Spain to study how many thermal cycles PVC medical tubing can withstand without significant degradation. To date, it has run four cycles – with no significant loss of properties such as colour, tensile strength or elastic modulus. Next, it will move to six cycles. A final report will be made this year. n The next Medical Tubing and Catheters North America conference is held in Tampa, USA on 29-30 October 2024. For more details, contact Louella Osano (
louella.osano@amiplastics.com) on +1 610 478 0800. The next event in Europe takes place on 1-2 April 2025 in Dusseldorf, Germany.
CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: �
www.vinylplus.eu �
www.recovinyl.com �
www.vinylinfo.org �
www.vinylsiding.org �
www.revinylizenow.org �
www.amiplastics.com �
https://pvcmed.org/ (VinylPlus Med)
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
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