Sustainable Procurement in Healthcare
One of the issues facing the local and global health sector is that COVID related PPE and associated consumables are creating mountains of plastic waste that must be dealt with. Governments are collectively exploring ways to meet and exceed legislative requirements on sustainable packaging by determining measures of success at a procurement level and seeking to incentivise incremental change with suppliers.
In October 2021, NSW Circular launched a Plastics in Healthcare Transition Plan that calls out procurement as a key enabler by selecting the right material types and also taking into consideration the lifecycle and recyclability of hospital products.
160,600 tonnes
of polypropylene products in 2018-19
indicating a strong commodities market if polypropylene recycling for remanufacture is properly implemented across the sector.
The NSW Circular recommends NSW Health Procurement to significantly reduce import of virgin materials in the health sector and develop a tool to identify the material type for the respective parts of a medical product.
