The University of Manchester and Vernacare International Limited KTP 24_25 R1

Hospitals in the UK throw away thousands of tonnes of single-use plastic every year—items like bedpans, urine bottles, and dressing packs that cannot be reused under current infection control rules. This project brings together the University of Manchester and Vernacare, a company that already manufactures single-use healthcare products, to find out exactly which plastics are being discarded and how they could be recycled instead of incinerated or landfilled. The core work is a lifecycle assessment: a detailed accounting of the environmental cost of each product from raw material to disposal. The team will then test polymer recycling technologies to see whether those plastics can be turned back into usable material without compromising hygiene or safety. If successful, the result would be a circular system for healthcare plastics—one where a bedpan made today could become the raw material for tomorrow’s product. That would cut waste, reduce carbon emissions, and lower the NHS’s reliance on virgin plastic, all without changing how clinicians work. The project is applied, not fundamental science: it aims to solve a specific industrial and environmental problem in the next two years.