Recycling and Waste Management

The primary challenge in life sciences is the volume and complexity of specialized waste, including medical-grade plastics and hazardous chemicals. This cluster addresses the need for scalable, advanced recycling infrastructure to handle high-volume plastic waste, moving beyond traditional methods to include technologies like pyrolysis. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of chemical valorization, seeking methods like distillation and filtration to recover and reuse expensive solvents, thereby reducing both environmental impact and operational costs. A critical element is the development of robust take-back and collection programs for complex medical devices to ensure their materials are recycled or repurposed safely.

Establish Scalable Plastic Recycling Solutions

Develop regional, high-tech solutions for collecting, sorting, and chemically recycling plastics, including decontamination of hazardous streams.

• Build an automatic (optical, mechanical, chemical) plastic sorting machine in the region.

• Develop solutions for pyrolytic treatment of plastic waste (Non-hazardous).

• Develop solutions to decontaminate hazardous plastic waste to enable recycling.

• Develop products designed for recycling.

• Analyse the potential for scalable collection system for single-use plastic waste, intended for pyrolysis (or similar chemical recycling methods) across different companies in the region.

• Collect non-contaminated plastics from laboratories and healthcare facilities for recycling instead of incineration, using sorting and decontamination technologies.

Improve Chemical Waste Valorization

Implement methods like distillation and filtration to recycle and reuse chemicals and solvents from laboratory waste, minimizing incineration.

• Develop solutions for solvent valorization from laboratories (especially for mixed, low-values fractions) instead of incineration.

• Develop solutions to collect/extract, recycle or repurpose specifc chemicals or by-products from (hazardous) waste streams.

• Reuse of catalysts.

• Develop/Implement systems to extract and recover chemicals from hazardous waste streams for reuse in industrial processes.

Take-back and Collection Programs for Medical Devices for Recycling

Organize collaborative schemes for collecting medical devices and systems at the end of their life to ensure materials are recovered, alongside updating safety standards for innovative recycling.

• Develop solutions integrating take-back schemes, disassembly and recycling for single-use injection systems (i.e. injection pens, complex on-body injectors).

• Develop solutions integrating take-back schemes, disassembly and recycling for medical devices.

• Update safety standards to accommodate innovative recycling methods and material recovery without compromising compliance. (Regulatory & Associations)

• Convert non-hazardous organic waste into compost or energy resources like biogas. (Healthcare provision, patients & services & Waste management)

• Mapping and assessment of already existing collection systems in CH for different types of medical devices.

• Inclusion of more stakeholders in design discussions; Education on redesign to simplify material collection/separation.

• Development of shared responsibility financial models- who pays? Equity model?

• Collect metals like titanium from medical practices and hospitals for reuse through advanced manufacturing techniques.