Thermo Fisher Scientific Joins Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council

Thermo Fisher Scientific Joins Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council

The Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council (HPRC) welcomes Thermo Fisher Scientific (Thermo Fisher), a global biotechnology and laboratory equipment manufacturer, as its newest member. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Fisher operates across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific to produce and market a broad range of analytical instruments, life sciences solutions, laboratory products, and specialty diagnostics.

“We are thrilled to have Thermo Fisher join our efforts,” says Peylina Chu, Director of HPRC. “Laboratories are a significant source of plastic waste as glassware has been replaced by single-use plasticware over the decades. As an industry leader and laboratory product innovator, Thermo Fisher has the right experience, insights, and commitment to environmental sustainability that will help enable healthcare plastic recycling and keep high-value, non-infectious, virgin materials out of landfills and incinerators.”

“At Thermo Fisher, we are always looking for ways to be a more responsible business partner for our customers,” says Rachael Relph, Environmental Sustainability Program Manager at Thermo Fisher. “It’s important for us to connect with customers, waste vendors, and industry organizations to identify how we can better recycle laboratory plastics and develop solutions to facilitate that. We see our membership in HPRC as an exciting and collaborative approach to helping us achieve greater sustainability in our business and our customers businesses.”

HPRC is currently engaged in multiple initiatives aimed at enabling recycling of healthcare plastics, including: facilitation and project management of a mixed flexibles recyclability assessment in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Lowell that will test material properties and evaluate end-use markets for recycled plastic packaging and develop guidance to help educate recyclers on common healthcare plastics, technical characteristics of the materials, and potential markets.

Other completed work by the council includes: development of plastic product and packaging design guidelines to improve end-of-life recyclability, development of a how-to guide, called HospiCycle , for hospitals seeking to recycle healthcare plastics generated in their facilities, and coordination of a multi-hospital plastics recycling project in the Chicago area.

About Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council

HPRC is a private technical coalition of industry peers across healthcare, recycling, and waste management industries seeking to improve recyclability of plastic products within healthcare. HPRC is made up of brand leading and globally recognized members including Baxter, BD, Cardinal Health, DuPont, Eastman Chemical Company, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Nelipak Healthcare Packaging, Ravago Recycling Group and Thermo Fisher Scientific. The council convenes biannually at meetings hosted by an HPRC member that regularly include stakeholder engagement events and facility tours to further learning and knowledge sharing opportunities through first-hand demonstration of best practices in sustainable product and packaging design and recycling processes. For more information, visit our about HPRC page and follow HPRC on LinkedIn.

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO) is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of more than $20 billion and approximately 70,000 employees globally. Our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We help our customers accelerate life sciences research, solve complex analytical challenges, improve patient diagnostics, deliver medicines to market and increase laboratory productivity. Through our premier brands – Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, and Unity Lab Services – we offer an unmatched combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and comprehensive support. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com.