PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The amount of plastic used in medical applications continues to rise. A large proportion of the resulting waste is disposed of in landfills along with ordinary municipal waste, while part of it is incinerated in hazardous waste disposal plants. Despite the fact that there is considerable demand for such high-quality plastic waste materials, the perception that plastic waste generated in hospitals is dirty and unsightly makes people reluctant to use it. Reuse was being prevented by the lack of action models and therefore a utilisation route specially adapted to plastic materials was required. However, practices in different hospitals vary and there is no exact data on the treatment, collection, reuse and required purification of plastic waste. The Tampere University Hospital was the project coordinator. Partners in the project included the University Hospitals of Helsinki and Kuopio, Kanta-Häme Central Hospital and the Waste Management of Pirkanmaa. The project was divided into subtasks, covering the utilization of polythene, polypropene and polystyrene, combustion of plastics for energy, problems in reuse of plastics caused by PVC as well as problems in collection, temporary stocking and transportation. All hospitals taking part in the project charted the amount, the quality and the purity of their plastic waste and the available sorting equipment and facilities.
OBJECTIVES
This project aimed to create common guidelines for the possible utilisation of mixed hospital plastic waste. In cooperation with experts in the plastics field, and taking into account the special features of hospital waste, logistics and pre-treatment were developed, which made it possible to reuse plastics as raw material for industry. The qualifications to transport plastic waste through the treatment centre or directly to combustion for energy recovery were cleared with the municipal waste treatment plant. Special issues concerning the transportation of plastic to landfill were also cleared. As a first step, the hospitals involved in the project quantified the volume of plastic waste they produce, breaking it down by type of plastic and type of product. Preliminary results indicated that the hospitals used hundreds of different plastic products made of widely varying chemical compounds. Once every hospital had audited its current plastic waste situation, collection and processing got underway. To facilitate this, guidelines were introduced and separation and collection equipment was provided. The fractions suitable for landfill, incineration and reuse needed to be separated as early as possible. The requirements for transporting plastic waste, and for any after-treatment, burning and dumping at landfills were studied. Options for reusing the products and/or recycling the plastic substances into products seem to depend on the purity and homogeneity of the plastic products and fractions collected. The innovative part of the project involved finding products suitable for recycling. Potential reusers are small and medium-sized plastics companies. One subtask was to resolve the problems connected with the sorting and temporary storage of the plastics and their transportation to the end user. Research examined whether it is advantageous to transport different plastics collected in different hospitals to one and the same reuser.
RESULTS
The main conclusion of the project was that substantial environmental benefits could be achieved by improving and changing all the stages of hospital plastic waste handling. This should cover both the procurement policy, aiming to reduce the volume of plastics entering the hospital, the collection and sorting of plastic waste requiring information on the chemical characteristics of the materials they are handling, and improvements in the plastic processing and final recycled products. The project found that 71% of hospital plastic waste could be recycled, if it was sorted and collected efficiently. In Finland this could provide sufficient employment for one to three recycled raw material factories. 17% was found to be PVC waste which currently in Finland cannot be incinerated whilst 9% was transported to landfills and recycling use. - The development of an effective recycling system would depend upon the classification of the cleanliness of waste, its chemical composition and final usage, and the development of an efficient sorting and collection facility. Recommendations were made on the feasibility of an optimum system: - A study was completed on cleanliness classifications ascertaining the potential for reusage, defining 4 categories: A) clean plastics that need no special treatment; B)plastics with impurities that need rinsing; C) plastics contaminated with patient's microbes carrying risk of infection which need to be treated with disinfectant methods or through autoclave moulding or ageing and 4) plastics contaminated with the cause of an infection needing separate treatment and disinfection. - Recommendations were then made for action to be taken according to chemical composition and final placement (recycling of the object, recycling as raw material,incineration and landfill sites) - Educational and training material was produced to back-up coherent, detailed collection procedures and guidelines for staff in plastic waste separation. - Recommendations were made to increase the logistical cooperation over waste sorting needs between municipalities and companies involved in recycling, to direct the waste to different recycling uses, recognising that the requirements for energy waste incineration were as high as for recyclable raw material. - Information was produced on necessary treatments for manufacturing reusable products, particularly highlighting different treatments dependent on cleanliness characteristics. - Recommendations were made on purchasing policy aimed at the purchase of recycled products manufactured from the plastic recycling process eg buckets, PVC mats, bin liners, plugs, coat hangers etc, and to prioritise purchases of hospital utensils made of recycled material, resulting in the substitution of 7000 tonnes of foreign petroleum based granulate by recycled materials. - The treatment of hazardous or extremely contaminated waste was recommended to be the subject of a separate study. The project helped both to increase knowledge and diminish prejudice towards hospital plastic waste, whilst providing concrete guidelines for its management, and for future hospital design and construction. The project's findings could be applied in different health services and could be transferred to other EU countries, with the exception of the recommendations on waste incineration (it being possible to incinerate PVC in the rest of Europe). A follow-up report, carried out in December 2004 by the LIFE external monitoring team, showed the process of separating the plastic waste has recently been extended to several other Finnish hospitals. A large proportion of the rejected waste is also re-used as product and almost all recyclable plastic material is delivered for re-processing. See: http://www.tays.fi (Finnish only).
