Today marks the official grand opening of our expanded Sustainable Technologies™ facility in Riverview, Florida, doubling the manufacturing facility to roughly 100,000 square feet. Sustainable Technologies™ is a leading provider of single-use device (SUD) collections, reprocessing and recycling services in the U.S., helping to deliver supply resiliency, sustainable solutions, and cost savings for customers.
“Sustainable Technologies™ is a unique growth business within Cardinal Health,” said Pete Bennett, senior vice president of Global Planning. “Our investment in this expansion highlights Cardinal Health’s commitment to helping reduce healthcare’s environmental impact and waste through SUD reprocessing.”
Single-use device reprocessing represents one of the largest opportunities to reduce hospital waste. Many single-use devices can be reprocessed multiple times, and, when they can no longer be reprocessed, they can be recycled. An industry report published this year by the Association of Medical Device Reprocessors, a trade association for the SUD reprocessing and remanufacturing industry (of which Sustainable Technologies™ is a member), notes that U.S. hospitals saved $372 million in 2020 by reprocessing SUDs, devices cost an estimated 25–40% less than their original counterparts.
Regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), single use device reprocessors are subject to stringent regulation and are required to show that a reprocessed device will remain substantially equivalent to the original device, post-reprocessing.
Sustainable Technologies™ currently services more than 3,000 U.S. hospitals and ambulatory service centers. Our sales and service team maps the facility, places collection bins in the most optimal locations for collection and schedules regular pickup of products ready to be reprocessed. Once in the Sustainable Technologies™ facility, products to be reprocessed are inspected, sorted, and cleaned. They are then tested, inspected, disinfected, and sterilized before finally being redistributed to healthcare facilities. Every device Sustainable Technologies™ reprocesses is 100% functionally tested to confirm safety and quality before resale.
Our Sustainable Technologies™ reprocessing facility operates on a zero waste to landfill model to manage end-of-life disposition using the most environmentally beneficial solution, which includes a combination of recycling and waste-to-energy programs. Since launching the initiative in 2016, we have diverted 99.9% of waste from landfills.
“Sustainable Technologies’ larger space will allow the business to bring on new products for customers, and better meet increasing demand for existing products,” Bennett said. “This represents a win-win, allowing us to help more customers both reduce costs and eliminate more waste from the environment.”
