This report originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of DOTmed Business News

There is a broad range of disposable medical products and devices in the health care industry.

With "disposable" as part of the description, it might not seem that these medical devices and a friendly "greener" environment could go hand-in-hand, but the industry segment is moving in a greener direction and trying to help reduce the millions of tons of medical waste generated each year - a portion of which is considered biohazardous.

A report by the Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) states that hospitals in the U.S. produce approximately 6,600 tons of waste per day. As much as 80% to 85% of this waste is non-hazardous solid waste like paper, cardboard,food, metal, glass and plastics. H2E believes that recycling would substantially reduce waste volume.

"Green disposables" begin with the design
Chris Kadamus, Principal Design Engineer at Cambridge Consultants Inc, believes that with the introduction of new regulations, rules and purchaser preferences, many of the waste disposal methods of hospitals and ultimately the design decisions of medical device manufacturers will soon be changing. "True sustainable design considers the social and financial effect ona product as well as its effect on the environment," says Kadamus.

From a designer or engineer's perspective, sustainable design takes the entire product life cycle into account, from creation to disposal, during the initial design of the product. Regulations for waste reduction and minimization or elimination of hazardous substances have already been in place for the European Union (EU) for several years for everything but medical devices, and it is believed that medical devices will be included sometime between 2010-2012 in the EU. These regulations include: the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE); Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS); Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH); and the Energy Using Products (EuP) regulations. The WEEE Directive is environmental legislation that hopes to reduce the amount of waste dumped into landfills. It encourages recycling and reusing electrical and electronic equipment. The RoHS applies to end-user electrical and electronic equipment (EEEE) and has in place maximum acceptable levels of six substances within the composition of the product including lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants. Kadamus says that although similar legislation does not yet exist in the U.S., there is pressure from a non-domestic customer base that has already forced many American companies to comply with WEEE and RoHS.

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