How does the United States handle medical waste plastics?

        In the United States and Canada, the vast majority of medical wastes are buried or burned after rigorous disinfection. But the third option, recycling, is beginning to accelerate.

        As one of the cases, the US Triumvirate Environmental Inc. successfully transformed pharmaceutical waste into plastic building materials. The company is planning to spread its proven technology to all parts of the country.

        The company, which has been established for 30 years, has an annual turnover of approximately $120 million, mainly dealing with hazardous and medical waste management.

        With the background of business for many years in the industry, the company built a factory in Pennsylvania, Janet, for recycling plastics with high content of medical waste, and processed into plastic building materials, in order to sell Best Plus brand.

        "We noticed the need for pharmaceutical companies and hospital clients to deal with waste," says CEO John Mc Quillan. The entire pharmaceutical industry strives to achieve zero landfill targets by 2020. They are looking for possible regenerative methods. "

        "Medical materials often require a large amount of packaging, which is mostly made of plastic," he said. And most importantly, they contain high-quality plastic that can be recycled. The problem with this material is that the quality grades of plastics are often different, and [miscellaneous] non plastic materials such as paper and cardboard. Therefore, it is difficult to regenerate this material by means of conventional regeneration. We are in the situation now that we are going to recycle these heavily polluted materials. "

        The company first disinfected the waste, then sorted out the metals it contained, and processed the remaining plastic and paper into building materials.

        The plastic content of the waste logistics is very high, most of which are HDPE, but there are various other kinds of plastics. Mixed plastic content, plus paper and cardboard, makes sorting materials expensive. According to Mc Quillan estimates, 70-80% is HDPE in waste streams, and 15% in mixed plastics.

        He said: "most plastics recycling companies do not want to see different plastic confusion, and do not want too many other non plastic materials.". We have a very inclusive process. We not only sterilize, smash, mix and extrude plastics, but also all other materials along with plastics, such as paper, wood or cardboard. "Best Plus plastic building materials can be painted in the manufacturing process or painted by the customer.".

Mc Quillan said that the company strictly checks the raw materials purchased. "The demand for waste is always difficult to satisfy. What I must keep in mind is to ensure that production matches demand. "

In less than two years, the Jeanne secret service grew from zero to about $600 thousand a month now. As the plant operates successfully, Triumvirate plans to build five more similar facilities in the United states.