Climate change and Covid-19, the two major C-words running the world the past few years. Initially, the lockdowns seemed good for the state of the planet, with significantly reduced car and manufacturing emissions, smog lifted around the world. However, as Kai-Yun Gao wrote in the very first Bulletin Edition, the Covid-19 pandemic caused a surge in disposable medical equipment in the interest of protecting healthcare professionals. The potential of Covid-19 fading out to leave behind a sea full of single-use masks and Covid-19 tests complicated the ethics of investing in medical equipment companies. Now in our fourth year of Covid-19 and Bulletin, here’s an update on both the planet and these medical equipment companies.

Many households around the world now requiring masks and other forms of personal protective equipment increased plastic waste significantly. A European Union Publications Office Report said that EU face mask imports increased 280% to 70 000 tonnes monthly at the peak of covid. Notably, an estimated 445 million disposable masks were disposed of daily in Europe, insane. The same report also mentioned that lockdowns restricting dining in restaurants and in person shopping increased the number of plastic takeaway containers and online shopping packaging in landfill.

As lockdown progressed, it was found that disposable face masks were ending up in the water, entangling and choking fish, turtles and birds. On top of this devastation, the UV breaks them down into microplastics, which can end up in fish, eventually be eaten and expose humans to invasive pathogens. As the Covid-19 pandemic continued, the environmental harm just kept getting worse. And the issue was not new to medical equipment companies.

Kai-Yun was right that big medical equipment companies such as Medtronic and 3M have large environmental impacts, but she didn’t touch on how sustainability in the medical industry has always been an issue. Bandages, surgical instruments, tubing, gloves, and gowns are all often single-use and have been piling up in landfills long before Covid-19 was a thing. Covid-19 just highlighted the impact healthcare has on the environment with personal protective equipment being used so widely by the public when beforehand only medical professionals wore them.

The major lack of sustainability in the medical industry is due in part to cost, packaging and distrust. The cost of cleaning and sterilising medical equipment is much higher than incinerating or disposal. Sterile equipment needs to be packaged so that it can remain sealed for the entire distribution chain and lots of this complex packaging is not recyclable. Then you have the patients who don’t want a scalpel or bandage that has been used on someone else, even if it has been re-sterilised.

Additionally, in a worldwide pandemic such as Covid-19, hospitals do not have the resources to sterilise doctors full protective gear for each new patient they see. So how did these firms' stock prices fare after their issues were highlighted?

Both Medtronic and 3M on the NYSE increased steadily from March 2020 to around September 2021, likely due to the peak of Covid-19 increasing their facemask and other protective device demand and production skyrocketing. Since then, both have steadily declined.

However, environmental impacts were not the reason behind their subsequent fall. Medtronic’s share price has fallen 40% in the last three years due to a combination of some trouble with the FDA in 2019 for their diabetes products, a slowdown of pandemic related growth, and healthcare staff shortages after Covid-19.

It still seems that environmental concerns are not top priority in the medical industry. In the midst of the pandemic it is hard to decide whether to save lives now, or later. Is the health of current generations more important or the planet and generations to come? And Kai-Yun mentioned that in the short term these companies would benefit from protecting current generations, but it's been three years now and Covid-19 is slowing down. Surely the short-term is over and we start prioritising the planet. There are some cool medical companies working to improve the sustainability of the healthcare industry that are worth checking out.

MIT has been working on new optimal ways to sterilise N95 masks in the professional industry that could cut costs and environmental waste by 75% at least.

Mura Technology is a global pioneer in using Hydrothermal Plastic Recycling Technology which breaks down old plastics into chemicals and oils to be reformed into new plastics and other materials. They’ve been getting good partnerships with LG Chem and Dow, a materials science company. Plastic recycling would be very beneficial in the medical device industry. There is also Zuno, who are developing Smart Sterilisation Containers that use no disposable waste. They stop sterile barriers breaking, which means there is less waste from unusable devices due to sterilisation failures.

Interning at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare last summer, I learnt there are whole sustainability teams working on more environmentally friendly substitutes for their medical device components. There are frameworks in place to ensure the packaging for the distribution of their devices are also recyclable.

All these firms are helping the shift towards a more sustainable future where environmental impact has been a secondary concern.

Since Kai-Yun wrote that article in 2020, the environment has not yet become the top priority in the medical device industry. With the amount of Covid-19 related rubbish ending up in the ocean, the planet is paying the price of protecting us from the disease.

However, there is still hope, with new, promising technologies popping up, to help crash through the barriers that previously restricted the medical device industry. A little more speed and urgency would go a long way in ensuring that the lives of today's and tomorrow’s generations' can be saved with medicine.

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