More and more people are using autoinjectors at home. That is why the plastic parts in the devices need to become more sustainable. We show five steps to greater sustainability.
The number of medical devices made of plastic for dispensing medication is growing steadily.
At materials manufacturer Covestro, we learn more about how the sustainability of these devices can be significantly increased.
Step 1: Use monomaterials, reduce complexity
If you succeed in eliminating complexity from a device such as an auto-injector, this means, by reducing the number of assemblies from many to fewer, this naturally leads to a reduction in the overall failure rate of the device. At the same time, production complexity is also reduced because you can perhaps build this auto-injector with fewer machines or with a less complex machine.
In this context, single-material concepts have the advantage that they are particularly easy to recycle and that the complexity that arises later in the waste stream can be significantly reduced.
Step 2: Use transparent plastics
Color is naturally an important criterion for autoinjectors, for example, to identify the manufacturer's colors, but also the type of medication. However, it is not necessary to use color. Our portfolio also includes plastics that fulfill the same function and are completely transparent. The big advantage of a transparent autoinjector is that if you recycle it mechanically, for example, if you don't recycle the plastic from this autoinjector purely mechanically, a much wider range of colors and design options are available in the second life cycle.
The whole thing is a medical plastic, and you can then move into a non-medical application in the second life cycle.
Step 3: Reduce material and make it easy to dismantle
Another approach is to discuss the issue of sustainability in the design of the medical device with the customer right from the start. This means that you first discuss with the engineers: Can the device be made thinner by using a more efficient plastic?
Thin walls mean that you need less material from the outset.
Step 4: Use alternative raw materials
Among other things, we can offer plastics that are equivalent to existing oil-based plastics but are based on alternative raw materials. As a result, the carbon footprint of these plastics is often significantly lower than that of equivalent fossil-based plastics.
Step 5: Digitize material and design planning
We are seeing more and more customers actually working with digital material twins. On the one hand, this has the advantage that they are much faster in their development cycle. This means they can create a new generation of devices in much, much less time using digital steps. On the other hand, this naturally also opens up a whole new spectrum for thinking about new designs, because what you used to only be able to look at via material samples that were physically sent to you is now available digitally on a much larger scale and in a much broader spectrum.
If no or only a few material samples need to be sent, this also saves resources and valuable time in the development of new products.
