The future of healthcare supply chains will not be defined by incremental waste reduction but by a fundamental shift in how materials, products, and resources are designed, used, and recovered.

Principles of the circular economy are beginning to take hold across the healthcare industry. As technologies and business models around circularity have matured, the payback for healthcare now expands beyond sustainability goals to include new revenue streams, reduced waste, increased operational efficiencies, and improved supply chain resilience.

Take-make-dispose models historically dominated healthcare supply chains, while single-use plastics revolutionized healthcare by reducing the risk of cross-contamination and hospital-acquired infections as sterile, disposable instruments became the gold standard. Cheap virgin plastics have also historically been the most economical and convenient option.

Today, circular models in healthcare are disrupting traditional linear supply chains. This is a topic of growing concern and interest for health systems and consumers alike.

Catalyst by Wellstar’s recent patient study tells us that addressing this challenge is a core patient concern as well: 61% of Wellstar’s respondents ranked waste reduction efforts (e.g., improved recycling and reduced use of disposables) as the most critical area for sustainability.

Catalyst by Wellstar is a limited partner/investor in VoLo Earth Ventures, a clean tech investment fund I co-founded and serve as CFO.  I recently was at SXSW to discuss this topic with Wellstar Health, bringing a long history in the healthcare industry

Polycarbin, a VoLo Earth portfolio company, epitomizes this trend by pioneering a closed-loop system for biomedical plastics, transforming laboratory waste into high-quality, lower-carbon lab consumables. The platform enables a circular supply chain by collecting used lab plastics and integrating waste management with procurement. With an emphasis on evidence-based sustainability, Polycarbin provides labs with third-party verified impact data, backed by an ISO 14040/14044-compliant life cycle assessment (LCA), so labs can track and measure their progress with confidence.

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