Berry Global, a leading nonwoven fabric manufacturer, Deaconess Midtown Hospital and Nexus Circular announced an initiative aimed at safely and effectively recycling non-hazardous, sterile, plastic packaging and nonwoven fabric from Deaconess Midtown Hospital’s Surgical Center. Through this effort, around 500 pounds per week – 350 bags – of clean, used plastics from the hospital’s surgical suite, pharmaceutical, laboratory and warehouse are diverted from landfill, primarily consisting of the protective exterior packaging from surgical tools removed prior to surgery and unused nonwoven surgical cloths and gowns.

“There is a stigma around recycling in a hospital setting given health and safety concerns. But a lot of healthcare plastic packaging is clean and discarded before surgeries even take place, such as peel packs for surgical instruments,” says Curt Begle, resident of Berry’s Health, Hygiene, and Specialties Division. “In addition to helping keep waste out of our environment, this initiative recycles valuable, sterile materials that were previously landfilled and provides new feedstock streams that can be used to produce new plastics, creating a circular loop.”

This innovative partnership between the plastic and medical industries reflects:

• Berry’s commitment to advancing circularity by increasing the use of recycled content & improving the collection & recyclability of used plastics;
• Deaconess Midtown Hospital’s sustainability vision to improve the health of its community by engaging employees and medical staff to explore and implement best practices for recycling, reduced energy and water consumption, proper waste disposal, and more; and
• Nexus Circular’s mission to provide an innovative, economically viable & commercially scaled advanced recycling solution for healthcare plastics.

“This innovative collaboration is a safe, convenient and important way to reduce our volume of waste, while returning quality recyclable materials back into production streams,” says Shawn McCoy, CEO, Deaconess Health System. “Staff have worked enthusiastically to develop effective processes for this initiative and are embracing this work as a continuation of their care for people and the environment in which we all live.”

Mixed streams of used, sterile healthcare plastics are collected at Deaconess Midtown Hospital and delivered to Evansville Packaging Systems (EPS) for auditing and vetting to separate plastic from other materials like paper, as well as confirm material is non-hazardous. EPS then transports the used plastics to Nexus Circular, which utilizes a pyrolysis-based advanced recycling technology to convert the plastic into its molecular building blocks that are then used to create new materials.

“Nexus is proud to partner with sustainability-minded organizations across the healthcare plastics value chain who view plastic as a resource and are seeking to develop new recycling pathways for hard-to-recycle materials,” says Carla Toth, SVP of Business Development at Nexus Circular. “We are demonstrating both the versatility and impact of advanced recycling to address previously landfilled plastics and reducing the accumulation of plastics in our environment while providing new sustainable materials for plastic production that reduce our dependence on fossil-based resources.”

As part of Berry’s “More Together” campaign, development of this circular initiative was spurred by Madyson Partenheimer, a commercial sustainability manager at Berry Global and former healthcare worker with a passion for recycling, who recognized an untapped opportunity to drive collective change. More Together encourages employees, customers, and partners to share their personal passions for creating change and highlights how Berry is working with others to advance the circular economy and lead the plastics industry away from its dependence on fossil fuels.