From travel to e-waste

Conny sees that this is often the fate for over 85 million medical devices shipped yearly to the European market [1].  “Our own analysis shows that we are wasting about €150 million worth of critical raw materials like gold, platinum, lithium on a yearly basis. To find ways to recycle, reuse or refurbish these products, Jason started working with us on Life Cycle Assessments (LCA). When I started with sustainable design, there was no solid methodology. Now, I am very excited to see our methods being expanded in the field of healthcare.”

Climate change’s health burden

Conny is involved in the Alliance to Zero coalition, an association that aims to facilitate the transition of the pharma sector to compliance with net-zero emissions. In one of the projects, students investigated ways to reduce the footprint for one of the leading manufacturers of syringes and injectable devices. “Currently, most of these are single use: they are designed to be thrown away. These devices include surgical steel, medical glass, all kinds of plastics. With a disassembly robot, these can be taken apart and re-used. The students investigated ways to design injectors in such a way that these can indeed be disassembled. While this dismantling is destructive, the raw materials can now be recycled back into the system. These initiatives show how sustainable design benefits industry. The next step is to bring such initiatives out of academia, into practice.”

It is Jason’s job to implement such initiatives in practice, and he knows this can be complicated in the pharmaceutical industry. “If you want to change something, you need to consider that by making changes in the production or packaging of a drug, you have to revisit approval dossiers at regulatory bodies like EMA and FDA. Since patient safety and efficacy of our treatments is and always will be our top priority, this can create tension with our sustainability ambitions. We need to strike the right balance and have a careful conversation on how to implement sustainable design, whilst guaranteeing safety and efficacy.”

Curious to hear more from Conny Bakker and Jason LaRoche? Join them on 28 March and register for Innovation for Health.