SAVA project aims to recover waste PVC from hospitals

"The healthcare environment use safe, high performance PVC that is highly recyclable. Many of these products never even make contact with patients, but are thrown away indiscriminately because of over-cautious practices that were introduced in the 1980s when HIV and Aids were peaking in the public awareness, but little was understood about the spread of the disease at the time," explains Delanie Bezuidenhout, CEO of SAVA.

According to SAVA, the ageing population is expected to drive the use of medical polymers from 4,901 kilotons (kt) in 2013 to 7,149 kt by 2020. That equates to a compound annual growth of 5.6%. "We also expect that conventional materials such as glass and metal will be further replaced by high performance polymers, increasing the use of PVC and polypropylene in hospitals," she says.

Battling with legacy

In recent years, SAVA has managed to transform the industry through its pro-active Product Stewardship Programme that voluntarily commits its member companies and local PVC manufacturers to sustainable practices and the removal of hazardous materials in the manufacturing process. Despite their successes, they are still battling to shake off the legacy and public perception that PVC cannot be recycled.

"PVC is a versatile polymer that can be used for anything from a rigid application such as piping, to soft applications such as IV bags, tubing and oxygen masks in hospitals. Even inflatable splints, blister packs for medicines, and flooring are PVC products," Bezuidenhout says, highlighting the large amount PVC products that can be diverted from landfill or recycled into a wide variety of new materials, such as shoe soles, pipes, hoses, door mats, gum boots and traffic cones.

Bezuidenhout says they are starting to see a change in the way that healthcare risk waste is managed. Hospital administrators and staff alike have been thinking about increasing separation and diversion to reduce both costs and the impact on the environment. There are also a lot of case studies and pilot projects from overseas demonstrating proof of concept.

Numerous advantages

There are numerous advantages for hospitals wanting to pursue this course of action. These include contributing towards the overall environmental compliance for the facility, enhancing community relationships, avoiding long-term liability, increases the moral of staff when they know they are perceived to be do the right thing, as well as various specific economic benefits.

Realising the benefits that can be unlocked from the project, a private hospital group has offered SAVA their full support and agreed to test the pilot project at two of their hospitals in the Western Cape.

"We have just completed the initial scoping questionnaires at both hospitals, which gave us a good idea of the amount of material that could be recycled, as well as a baseline from which to work. At the same time, we conducted site visits and met with senior managers at both hospitals to explain our project and on-going involvement in their hospitals.

"We are confident that we will be able to roll out the pilot of our PVC recycling project to other hospitals in 2016," Bezuidenhout concludes.