Smart Medical Devices Need Circular Redesign to Reduce Growing E-Waste
The rapid expansion of connected and electronic medical devices is creating a sustainability challenge for the healthcare sector, as products designed to improve monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment increasingly contribute to complex electronic waste streams.
Research led by the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands suggests that circular economy principles remain relatively uncommon in medical device design. The findings point to a need for manufacturers, healthcare providers, policymakers, and waste-management companies to consider what happens to devices after their first period of use, while maintaining strict requirements for patient safety and clinical performance.
The research, published in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling, reviewed more than 1,400 active medical devices. Only 346, approximately 25%, incorporated at least one circular strategy. Two-thirds of those 346 devices used only one circular approach, while just 5% achieved what researchers considered a relatively high circularity score.
The findings are particularly relevant as healthcare systems increasingly depend on digitally enabled devices, including monitoring equipment, diagnostic technologies, wearable devices and other electronics used both in healthcare facilities and in patients' homes.
Reuse Dominates Existing Circular Strategies
Among the 346 devices identified as incorporating circular practices, 95% could be reused across more than one product life cycle. For some devices, this involves cleaning, decontamination and sterilization before another clinical use.
Maintenance or repair services were available for 49% of the reusable products identified by researchers.
Other circular economy approaches were substantially less common. About 13% of the circular devices used a "rethink" strategy, such as combining multiple functions or allowing products to be shared between users, while 12% incorporated remanufacturing and 10% focused on reducing material or energy use.
Only around 5% incorporated recycling as a documented circular strategy. Repurposing and renewal were found in just 0.2% of the devices studied.
This matters because extending the life of an entire device is only one part of a circular system. Products eventually reach a point at which reuse is no longer technically, economically or clinically appropriate. At that stage, designs that allow components, electronics and materials to be separated can determine whether valuable resources are recovered or lost as waste.
The researchers therefore argue that medical device developers should look beyond reuse and consider a wider combination of strategies, including material reduction, remanufacturing, repurposing and recycling.
Medical Devices Create Unusual Circular Economy Challenges
Applying circular economy principles to healthcare products is more complicated than doing so for conventional consumer electronics.
Medical equipment must meet demanding standards for safety, reliability, hygiene and clinical effectiveness. Products may also come into contact with biological materials, meaning that reuse, dismantling and recycling can involve contamination and infection risks.
The TU Delft study identified perceived safety and infection risks, regulatory difficulties, financial limitations, collection challenges and difficulties separating materials among the barriers to greater circularity.
Design decisions can also create trade-offs. Making a battery easier to access, for example, could facilitate repair and recycling but introduce additional safety considerations. Materials that tolerate repeated sterilization may have different environmental characteristics from materials optimized for recycling.
For that reason, the researchers emphasize that circular medical products cannot compromise quality, functionality, usability or safety.
Designing Circularity into Products from the Beginning
The study developed 29 design recommendations for improving medical device circularity.
These include considering circular potential early in product development, reducing unnecessary material use, enabling easier separation of different materials, and avoiding complex mixed-material combinations where possible. The researchers also recommend considering bio-based, biodegradable, or other alternative materials, provided that their actual environmental performance is evaluated rather than assumed.
Another important principle is designing products so that multiple circular strategies can be applied throughout their lifetime.
Instead of treating a device as either reusable or disposable, manufacturers could develop products that are initially reused, subsequently repaired or remanufactured, and ultimately dismantled so components and materials can enter recycling streams.
Such an approach could also influence procurement decisions. Hospitals and healthcare systems that consider lifetime costs, repairability, take-back arrangements and end-of-life management alongside purchase price could create stronger commercial incentives for circular products.
European Project Explores Circular Digital Healthcare
The research forms part of Digital Health in a Circular Economy (DiCE), a project funded through the European Union's Horizon Europe programme.
DiCE is examining how circular economy principles can be applied specifically to digital health devices, including smart pillboxes, wearable sensors and other connected healthcare technologies. The project is coordinated by Janssen Pharmaceutica NV and involves stakeholders across the digital health value chain.
According to the European Commission's CORDIS database, DiCE researchers have identified 31 potential circular design guidelines and developed redesigned versions of several products, including digital display labels, smart pillboxes and an endocutter.
The project has also deployed 25 smart collection boxes in Belgium, Slovenia and Spain to test reverse logistics systems for recovering devices. Recycling and refurbishment trials are intended to provide information both for product designers and for organizations responsible for collecting equipment after use.
The wider objective is to establish systems in which manufacturers, healthcare providers, patients, collection services and recyclers can return products and components to productive use rather than relying on a linear model of manufacturing, use and disposal.
Implications for Healthcare Manufacturers
For medical device companies, greater circularity could increasingly require changes across product development rather than simply improvements to waste management.
Material selection, component accessibility, repairability, sterilization compatibility, software support and arrangements for recovering devices can all affect how long equipment remains useful and what happens when it reaches the end of its clinical life.
The TU Delft researchers found that most devices examined still do not visibly incorporate these considerations.
As healthcare becomes more digital, the volume and complexity of electronic equipment entering hospitals and patients' homes is likely to increase. Developing systems that allow safe reuse, repair, remanufacturing and material recovery could therefore become increasingly important for reducing healthcare waste and the demand for new raw materials.
The challenge for manufacturers and healthcare systems will be to achieve those environmental benefits without weakening the safety, quality and reliability standards on which medical technology depends.
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