Developing standards 

for sustainable 

healthcare packaging

 
 
 

Standards evolve to include sustainability

Standards for healthcare packaging are essential to ensure patient safety while minimizing the environmental impact. Through the standards-setting process, the value chain can align on a set of common goals and adopt a systematic approach to better ensure success through consensus, collaboration and innovation.

 

Standards are a key tool for achieving the sustainability objectives of packaging set by national and regional regulations that are being introduced to support sustainable development. Europe, with its new circular economy and its new green deal is currently leading the way, but other countries will follow.

 

ISO and European Committee for Standardization (CEN) are committed to helping governments, industry and consumers achieve the UN SDGs. For example, an annex on environmental aspects of packaging was added to the 2019 version of ISO 11607 for the first time. While ISO 11607 continues to position patient safety and maintaining sterility as top priorities, it now encourages users to include environmental considerations when designing sterile barrier solutions. Other standards are being developed to address design for recyclability, quality of recycled materials and recycling processes, to name just a few.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Recognizing the vital importance of such standards, members of our DuPont™ Tyvek® team continue to be actively involved in various ISO, CEN, ASTM International and Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) technical committees that develop state-of-the-art standards to advance the UN SDGs in collaboration with impacted stakeholders.

*Tyvek® is made of HDPE and products made of 100% Tyvek® material can be recycled at facilities that recycle flexible HDPE materials. Please check recycling facilities in your area to ensure they can recycle Tyvek®.