Modern healthcare would not be possible without the use of plastic. Plastic has proven to be one of the few materials versatile enough to adapt to the dynamic nature of the healthcare industry, delivering benefits that include sterility, quality, durability, and most significantly, patient and healthcare worker safety. With endless design applications, plastics are found in everything from syringes, tubing, and IV bags to prosthetics, prescription bottles, and sterile packaging. Plastics are incredibly cost-effective to produce and lightweight to transport when compared to their metal and glass predecessors.

Despite the many benefits, there are environmental consequences linked to plastics use in healthcare, most importantly, the waste created. In this paper, we bring healthcare plastics into the circular economy discussion. More specifically, we identify challenges and opportunities for using post-consumer recycled (PCR) and post-industrial recycled (PIR) content in medical devices and medical device packaging. We outline pressing regulatory, technical, infrastructure, and economic barriers to promoting circularity in healthcare plastics, as well as the opportunities on the horizon that could enable greater circular solutions for medical devices and medical device packaging applications.