CEMTex

The current linear model of single-use medical textiles, dependent directly on Far East supply chains, underscores Europe’s current and increasing vulnerability in the context of rising geopolitical tensions, and creates large amounts of waste for landfill or incineration, in contravention with EU vision on reduction in carbon emissions and waste. As regional governments are responsible for the furthering of circular economy, minimising waste and boosting business opportunities and innovations that contribute to the uptake of multiple use products, eight regional organisations from NL, DK, CZ, RO, IT, LU, ES will work together as partners, supported by one discovery partner from UKR and one associated policy authority to overcome the current barriers for “circular medical textiles” in their regions.

In the last 30 years, EU healthcare institutions have gradually abandoned the washing and sterilisation infrastructure deployed for traditional re-usable medical textiles. In parallel, strict EU norms have been put into place to guarantee the highest standards of hygiene in medical care, contributing to the rise of single-use medical textiles. This will have to change by 2025 to meet the requirements of the new EU Waste directive and regulations. Fortunately, new technical textiles which allow washing have been developed, thus securing sterilisation of reusable surgical wear to healthcare standards. However, regional policies are currently not adapted to the new infrastructure and skills needed for EU norm compliance on both waste and healthcare.

CEMTex identifies the many bottlenecks in both public procurement frameworks on the demand-side as well as the logistical and compliance issues on the supply side and will provide solutions and best practices to help build better policy instruments that can favor both the production use and re-use of circular medical textiles and boost regional value chains and the circular economy in general.