MYGroup: Yorkshire recycling firm partners with Johnson & Johnson in bid to cut down waste in NHS

The collaboration will see a range of Johnson & Johnson MedTech packaging in the UK, including foil for sutures, plastic packets and trays, collected from hundreds of settings and recycled end-to-end by MYGroup at its facilities in Hull, East Yorkshire.

Steve Carrie, director, MYGroup, said: “This collaboration with Johnson & Johnson will deliver a significant and lasting contribution to the NHS’ waste targets – particularly in diverting a large proportion of plastic from incineration.

"Our work will demonstrate the art of the possible: that there is no such thing as ‘unrecyclable’ waste, even from the most complex operating environments.”

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MYGroup will process the collected waste material through its state-of-the-art separation and recovery processes, with any remaining plastic material being converted into MYBoard a material similar in consistency to plywood – used for construction, shop fitting and joinery.

The material is also used in the manufacture of products for resale and use in community settings, such as benches and desks for schools. Any metal components will be smelted back into aluminium for recycling into new products.

In an earlier proof-of-concept for the initiative, MYGroup produced a large MYBoard bench for Johnson & Johnson MedTech’s Pinewood Campus, near Wokingham, manufactured from a test sample of the company’s waste.

MYGroup said the collaboration represents its move into the clinical and healthcare space, after the company was approved to process and recycle clinical waste by the Environment Agency in October 2022.

The initiative is also in line with the NHS’ Clinical Waste Strategy, which aims to eliminate avoidable waste, particularly single-use plastics, and to significantly reduce waste being sent to incineration. Currently, almost 50,000 tons of clinical waste across the NHS is sent to incineration each year.