The Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council (HPRC) is pleased to welcome Sonoco, a producer of high-quality healthcare packaging for clinical and consumer needs, as its newest member. Sonoco’s Healthcare Packaging business is part of Sonoco, a $5.2 billion global provider of diversified consumer packaging, protective packaging and packaging supply chain services.
“Sonoco Healthcare Packaging is a leader in sustainable packaging solutions,” says Peylina Chu, Executive Direct of HPRC. “Their subsidiary, TEQ, was one of the first packaging companies to adopt HPRC’s Design for Recycling Guidelines into their medical packaging. As a member of HPRC, Sonoco will help drive our vision toward an economy where all healthcare plastics are safely and effectively recycled and widely accepted as a valuable resource. Additionally, their insights and first-hand knowledge developing recyclable sterile barrier systems for the healthcare industry will directly contribute to our ongoing project work.”
Sonoco’s medical packaging solutions offer multiple plastic and environmentally friendly sterile barrier packaging systems including: TEQethyleneTM, TEQpropyleneTM and TEQconnexTM. These sterile barrier systems provide the industry with a recyclable medical packaging solution that use a proprietary blend of materials unique to each system.
“Our commitment to sustainability has been the primary driver in developing many of our products,” says Todd McDonald, Global Director of Sales and Marketing at TEQ. “In healthcare applications, we understand that for patient safety, plastic is usually the best solution. We also understand that recyclability is a critical design feature that cannot be overlooked. Being sustainable and saving lives are not mutually exclusive. I look forward to working collaboratively with HPRC to improve the recyclability of plastic products and packaging within healthcare.”
With a newly activated European chapter, HPRC Europe members are currently engaged in multiple initiatives aimed at enabling recycling of healthcare plastics, including mapping hospital barriers to recycling clinical plastics, recruiting advisory board members from European healthcare organisations, and engaging with other plastics and recycling organisations in Europe to identify areas of synergy and collaboration.
TEQ has state-of-the-art production facilities based in the UK at Hucknall Industrial Park, near Nottingham and at Poznan in Poland. Both sites have certified cleanroom facilities used to produce products for the medical sector.
