What is it about?

Healthcare manufacturing is important for employment, research, and economic activity in Ireland (particularly in areas outside of the main urban area of Dublin). In fact, Galway is a leading global hub for medtech research and development. However, while there are amazing people helping people fight disease and live longer and healthier, there is not much activity to reduce these products' environmental impacts, and particularly making products more circular (keeping products in use for as long as possible, reusing where possible, redesigning for multiple lives for products and the raw materials). The study engaged with various people at all levels working in healthcare manufacturing in Ireland via a survey, to see how prepared these companies are to become more circular.

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Why is it important?

Medical waste (pre-pandemic) contributed to 11% of waste in Ireland, which is on the increase. Circularity is important as we are using way more stuff that the planet can sustain. This is predicted to increase massively over the next 10 year by another 50%. We need to rethink everything, how we design our stuff, how it is used, and what happens at the end of its useful life. In order to make a change, we need to figure out where we are at in the first place.

Perspectives

This study showed that (at the time of writing) knowledge around the circular economy was almost non-existent in healthcare manufacturing in Ireland. However, there were circular aspects that had been implemented, which had been driven by various cost-saving initiatives (rather than a drive towards circularity or sustainability). The reasons for a lack of implementation was mainly because this issue was not a priority from top executives (where key decisions are made), therefore there was a lack of funding to develop more sustainable models of production. To move the dial on this issue, the respondents to this survey would welcome focused assistance (e.g. grants) and new policy and legislation to develop more circular models. This study adds to the limited empirical literature on CE barriers and opportunities to manufacturing organisations operating in Ireland.

Dr Sinéad Mitchell
National University of Ireland Galway

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Saving Lives and Saving the Planet: The Readiness of Ireland’s Healthcare Manufacturing Sector for the Circular Economy, September 2020, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-8131-1_19.
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