Sustainability in Healthcare with NeedleSmart

Learn how our innovative NeedleSmart technology offers the opportunity to move hypodermic needles, syringes and consumables associated with the injection/vaccination process away from conventional sharps bins to a solution that allows recycling to become a possibility. NeedleSmart offers a sustainable % decrease in waste disposal, > 25% reduction in sharps bin requirement and an associated reduction in disposal journeys/costs/carbon %. 

Globally, the currently accepted protocol for sharps disposal (hypodermic needles and syringes) is via incineration, in many cases of both the sharps bin and contents.

The current process has endured for many years, however if the NHS and healthcare systems globally are to significantly reduce carbon footprint the process of incinerating single use plastics and metals must be considered. The NHS in England is responsible for around 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Every aspect of the current process is carbon positive from the point of procurement and subsequent manufacture to incineration.

All NeedleSmart products share the same core technology that takes a contaminated hypodermic needle and renders it a “non-sharp” that is free from contaminants such as virus and bacteria by heating it to over 1300 degrees and compressing it into a sphere of metal at the end of the syringe. It should also be noted that there is no secondary waste stream. The needle is reformed and re-purposed in the NeedleSmart process and the resulting “non-sharp” provides the catalyst to evolve a process and culture to move past the current non-sustainable processes and routines in a controlled and reliable manner.

The NeedleSmart Pro product is FDA approved and fully CE complaint and available for use globally. In addition to the physical technology, every NeedleSmart product can connect directly to the NeedleSmart digital DVS technology platform to gather and transmit relevant information from the “transaction”. In the case of sustainability, NeedleSmart would propose that a measurement per transaction of carbon reduction could be calculated and transmitted to an employee recognition APP supporting NHS sustainability through a human factors approach.

NeedleSmart are committed and focussed to become a key enabling technology in the continuous battle to reduce our carbon footprint.

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NeedleSmart is market leading, patented needle destruction technology engineered in the UK. The NeedleSmart PRO needle destruction device has recently achieved FDA approval as a Class II medical device. NeedleSmart is the first UK company to achieve FDA 510(k) approval (Class II for Sharps Needle Destruction Device (NDD). NeedleSmart devices heat a sharp, contaminated needle to 1,300°C, then compresses the molten metal into a safe, sterile sphere of metal at the end of the syringe, removing the danger of needlestick injury and infection in just 6 seconds.