Baxter Advances First Intravenous (IV) Bag Recycling Pilot for U.S. Hospitals
14 Dezembro 2023 - 10:00AM
Business Wire
- Pilot phase successfully demonstrated proof of concept, with
more than six tons of plastic IV bag waste diverted from landfill
from Northwestern Memorial Hospital
- Baxter now expanding pilot to support scalability
- Program demonstrates Baxter’s and Northwestern Medicine’s
commitment to corporate responsibility and waste reduction
Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX), an innovative leader in
infusion therapies and technologies, announced the completion of
the first phase of its intravenous (IV) bag recycling program
pilot. Launched in conjunction with Northwestern Medicine, a
premier integrated academic health system in Chicago, more than six
tons (or 12,000 pounds) of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) IV bag waste —
enough to cross the city of Chicago if bags were laid end-to-end —
has been successfully diverted from landfill to be recycled for a
useful second life. This program is the first of its kind to launch
in the U.S.
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Photo of IV bag recycling provided by
Northwestern Medicine. (Photo: Business Wire)
“Across the country, hundreds of thousands of IV bags are used
every day. Baxter is a proud manufacturer and supplier of these
bags, which are ubiquitous in hospital care—particularly single-use
plastic containers that provide patients clinically essential
solutions including fluids, nutrition and medicines,” said Cecilia
Soriano, president of Baxter’s Infusion Therapies and Technologies
division. “In line with Baxter’s commitments as a responsible
corporate citizen, we believe this pilot helps pave the way for
meaningful, long-term waste reduction.”
Unlike other medical equipment products such as syringes and
needles, which have established post-use collection methods,
standard practice for non-hazardous IV bag removal includes
draining of residual fluid and disposing as waste that ultimately
ends up in a landfill. Through this pilot program, stakeholders
from several Northwestern Memorial Hospital departments — including
nursing, supply chain and environmental services — were engaged to
help develop a new process that enables the incorporation of
material separation for recycling into nursing workflow while also
managing space constraints common to hospital settings. With
dedicated third-party logistics and recycling partners, collected
IV bags are transported and inspected to ultimately be recycled
into products such as industrial floor mats and protective edging
for docks and landscaping. All IV bags involved in this pilot were
made of PVC, one of the most widely used plastic materials in
medical products.
“We are proud to pilot this program with Baxter to be the first
health system in the nation to begin recycling PVC IV bags,” said
Jeff Good, Northwestern Medicine’s first chief sustainability
executive and vice president of operations. “What started as a
single-unit pilot is now standard practice across several of our
inpatient units within Northwestern Memorial Hospital and has
resulted in the recycling of more than 170,000 IV bags. Our health
system understands the environmental importance of this pilot
program and we are dedicated to creating initiatives that support
our overarching sustainability goals to reduce our carbon footprint
and eliminate unnecessary waste.”
As a company focused on waste reduction, Baxter’s objective for
the pilot’s first phase was to establish proof of concept for a
program that assists hospitals in recycling plastic IV bags
manufactured by Baxter. Following the successful conclusion of the
pilot phase, Northwestern Medicine will continue to implement the
program and will explore expanding the program throughout the
health system. Baxter is now actively seeking to engage additional
health system participants in the Chicago area to further validate
the process and economic feasibility. Doing so will support
long-term, large-scale implementation with potential roll out to
other health systems across the country.
This program builds on Baxter’s innovative experiences
partnering with hospitals and waste collection companies outside of
the U.S. to recycle valuable materials at the end of product life.
In recent years, Baxter has introduced several programs to
facilitate recycling for patients and hospitals in Australia, New
Zealand, Guatemala and Colombia.
About Baxter
Every day, millions of patients, caregivers and healthcare
providers rely on Baxter’s leading portfolio of diagnostic,
critical care, kidney care, nutrition, hospital and surgical
products used across patient homes, hospitals, physician offices
and other sites of care. For more than 90 years, we’ve been
operating at the critical intersection where innovations that save
and sustain lives meet the healthcare providers who make it happen.
With products, digital health solutions and therapies available in
more than 100 countries, Baxter’s employees worldwide are now
building upon the company’s rich heritage of medical breakthroughs
to advance the next generation of transformative healthcare
innovations. To learn more, visit www.baxter.com and follow us on
X/Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
About Northwestern Medicine
To learn more about Northwestern Medicine, visit
http://news.nm.org/about-northwestern-medicine.html.
This release includes forward-looking statements concerning
potential benefits associated with IV bag pilot program (including
the anticipated expansion of the program and any environmental
impacts). The statements are based on assumptions about many
important factors, including the following, which could cause
actual results to differ materially from those in the
forward-looking statements: satisfaction of regulatory and other
requirements; actions of regulatory bodies and other governmental
authorities (including with respect to climate change and other
sustainability matters); changes in law and regulations; future
actions of third parties (including Northwestern Medicine and other
hospital systems); and other risks identified in Baxter's most
recent filing on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and other SEC filings, all
of which are available on Baxter's website. Baxter does not
undertake to update its forward-looking statements.
Baxter is a registered trademark of Baxter International
Inc.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231214638041/en/
Media Contact Bess Featherstone, (224) 948-5353
media@baxter.com
Investor Contact Clare Trachtman, (224) 948-3020
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