104 - Small Revolution: Stories About Upcycling in Hospitals

What if the plastic waste from a hospital's clinical areas could come back as the ID card holders every nurse and doctor wears every day? That is what SMALLrevolution is doing, and it is one of the more elegant circular economy stories I have come across in healthcare. About the guest: Arendse Ekegren Baggesen is the Founder of SMALLrevolution, a Danish design-to-manufacturing company that collects plastic waste from hospitals, municipalities, and companies, transforms it into recycled raw material, and produces furniture and functional products that go back to the original waste producer. Three key takeaways:

• According to Arendse, only 8-10% of plastic collected in Denmark is actually recycled. Sorting quality in the waste stream, not collection, is the primary bottleneck.
• SMALLrevolution's closed-loop model: they collect a facility's waste, produce products from it, and return those products to the same facility, along with full LCA and ESG data.
• According to Arendse, producing one kilo of virgin plastic requires two kilos of crude oil. Redirecting to recycled material reduces both CO2 emissions (around 30% vs. virgin plastic, based on SMALLrevolution's own LCAs) and crude oil demand.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Introduction and origins of SMALLrevolution
• 02:00 - Why recycled plastic for outdoor furniture?
• 05:00 - Finding the first factory willing to work with household plastic waste
• 07:00 - How COVID pivoted SMALLrevolution from B2C to B2B
• 08:00 - The closed-loop model: collect, produce, return
• 09:00 - LCAs and ESG data on every product
• 10:00 - What actually happens to plastic in the "normal" waste stream?
• 12:00 - Why sorting quality, not collection, is the real bottleneck
• 14:00 - How hospitals can get started: two live case studies
• 18:00 - The "not another bucket" problem in surgical theatres
• 21:00 - CO2 impact: around 30% reduction vs. virgin plastic (based on SMALLrevolution's own LCAs)
• 23:00 - According to Arendse: 2 kg of crude oil per 1 kg of plastic, and what that means for resource resilience

Pull quote: "All vases in the world should be produced in a recycled material. There is demand, and there is a lot of waste, so why not connect those two dots?" Contact Arendse:
Website: smallrevolution.dk
LinkedIn: Arendse Ekegren Baggesen You might also enjoy:
Episode 088: Circular Material Flow of Medication in the Intensive Care Unit (Nicole Hunfeld, Erasmus UMC)
Episode 074: The Future of Reprocessing in Healthcare (Lars Thording, Innovative Health)
Episode 096: Recycling Pharmaceutical Transport Packaging (Arne Kloke, SCHOTT Pharma)