Waste management firm Grundon hopes to help the NHS drastically cut its carbon emissions following the trial of a pioneering disposal service for the millions of needles, scalpels and scissors it throws away every year.
The pilot scheme across two ICU units in one major London hospital saved 1.26 tonnes of CO2e in just eight weeks by using Grundon’s reusable sharps container service compared to single-use ones. 
Grundon, which has secured a number of major contracts in Bristol since setting up the city in 2020, believes NHS trusts can make considerable carbon savings by switching to the new service.
Developed in partnership with specialist manufacturer to the medical and healthcare sector Inpress Precision, it uses Sharpak Zero reusable containers – saving an average 87% of the carbon used within the lifetime of each, so preventing millions of single-use containers being disposed of each year.
The containers, which are approved to UN standards, are collected in the same way as in the traditional system, but on arrival at Grundon’s facilities are emptied using specialist equipment.
While the contents are weighed before being sent for high-temperature incineration, the empty containers are sanitised and inspected before being returned to West Sussex-based Inpress Precision for quality checking and redistribution.
Each Sharpak Zero container is fitted with an identifying barcode to track the number of times it has been used.
After 10 uses, the container will be granulated for reprocessing into new containers. After 10 cycles of 10 uses, the plastic is granulated again and used in other plastic products, so the plastic is never wasted, only borrowed.
London’s Hammersmith Hospital, pictured, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, was chosen for the trial due to the large volume of sharps used.
Grundon commercial manager – clinical, Andy Stratton, pictured above, centre, with colleague Becky Lillywhite and George Cooke from Inpress, said the service offered a potential major win for NHS trusts as they worked towards carbon emission reduction targets set out in the NHS Clinical Waste Strategy.
“By 2026, trusts have been tasked with achieving a 50% reduction in carbon emissions produced from waste management, a figure that rises to 80% by 2028-2032,” he added.
“In particular, they have to reduce the average net cost of clinical waste management by 15% per tonne of waste by 2030. This is where we can help.
“The hard facts are that, to achieve these carbon and financial savings, bold decisions will have to be made about adopting new technology and new ways of operating.
“Sharpak Zero reusable sharps containers are proven to reduce carbon emissions yet, most importantly for busy nursing staff, they do not require any changes to existing sharps container disposal routes, making the implementation easy to manage.”
He said the benefits of the process were three-fold.
“Firstly, and most importantly, we are saving carbon emissions because we are no longer needlessly incinerating millions of single-use sharps containers every year.
“Secondly, weighing just the contents of the bins gives NHS trusts a true carbon reduction figure because it does not include the weight of the bin.
“And lastly, cleaning and reusing the containers mean no plastic is wasted in addition to dramatically reducing the amount of virgin plastic required to produce new bins each time.”
Grundon has set up several key sustainability initiatives in Bristol, including a depot in St Philips followed by the introduction a £300,000 electric collection vehicle onto the city’s streets last summer.
It also recently landed contracts with the operator of Bristol Zoo Project and the city’s Wake The Tiger ‘amazement park’.
