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Biopolymers Hold Potential


By Daphne Allen, Editor in Chief

Like forward-thinking medical device manufacturers these days, Edwards Lifesciences has launched an internal initiative to lessen its impact on the environment. As a result, Project Green, the company’s effort, has its packaging leader exploring biopolymers. Don Krebs, CPP, senior packaging engineer, global packaging operations, will be presenting “Challenges of Implementing Biopolymer Packaging Material in the Medical Device Industry” at the upcoming Medical Design & Manufacturing West 2010 in Anaheim, CA, held February 8-11.

“Project Green involves benchmarking our operations and then measuring our achievements,” explains Krebs. “For instance, our buildings are measured for their energy consumption, and then we have contests to see which one can reduce its energy use the most. As a result, energy consumption per unit cost has been reduced by 20% over the past 5 years, resulting in a savings of up to $1,000,000 globally on a year-to-year basis. We are also measuring paper use. Paper consumption has decreased by more than 20% with an emphasis on purchasing higher postconsumer-content paper. Edwards in the future is focusing more on improving its supplier and customer environmental initiatives, including a strong emphasis on packaging source reduction and reducing environmentally unfriendly packaging materials.”

Krebs says he started looking at ways to reduce the company’s carbon footprint through packaging decisions. “I looked at the life-cycle analysis of plastics and decided to see whether we could use a sustainable plastic,” he explains. “So I set out to see whether we could move from nylon- and polyethylene-based materials to poly-lactic acid (PLA) based materials.”

PLA’s appeal is not its degradability, says Krebs. “Most hospitals incinerate materials, so you lose this benefit. But less energy is required to produce PLA.”

He soon discovered challenges. When it comes to PLA, “material cost goes up while performance or robustness goes down,” he says. There may also be challenges with certain sterilization methods.

But Krebs hasn’t been discouraged. He has met with a few PLA manufacturers, such as the CEO of NatureWorks LLC, which makes Ingeo. He is conducting more research in time to share his findings with his peers at MD&M West.

So far, Krebs doesn’t think PLA can be used as a stand-alone material, at least for medical packaging applications. “I think it could work in a scenario where it is blended with more commonly used materials in a rigid application,” he says.

Using “sustainable plastic” in just a portion of the packaging structure still has its benefits, says Krebs. Project Green has some of Edwards’ engineers thinking about “source reduction,” he reports, and reducing the use of traditional plastic can help “reduce our overall carbon footprint.”

The medical device industry is no stranger to biopolymers. It has employed biopolymers for implantable medical devices that degrade at a certain rate matching that of bone growth, Krebs shares. Edwards’ scientists continue their research, including producing synthetic biopolymers in the lab.

Krebs will be speaking at MD&M West on February 8 in the medical packaging session chaired by Kevin Zacharias, engineering program manager, Oliver-Tolas Healthcare Packaging. Other speakers include Scott Levy, packaging engineer, Distribution Dynamics Lab (DDL); Michael L. Troedel, ASTM Fellow, president, Troedel & Associates Inc.; Michael Scholla, senior consultant, Dupont Protection Technologies, and PMP News Editorial Advisory Board Member; Lisa Foster, VP, SteriPro Services Sterigenics; and Jane Severin, director of technology, Oliver-Tolas Healthcare Packaging.

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