DiCE project aims to reduce e-scrap in health care
E-waste Recycling | 2026-09-24 05:08:56 | By Paul Ploumis
The project was funded through the European Union's Horizon Europe program.
SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): A four-year international initiative has produced what participants describe as the first practical blueprint for transforming digital health care devices into a circular system that keeps products, components and valuable materials in use longer.
The final report of the Digital Health in the Circular Economy (DiCE) project—which includes 20 participating organizations from nine European countries—concludes that manufacturers, health care providers, policymakers, recyclers and patients all have roles to play in reducing health care electronic scrap, or e-scrap, while maintaining patient safety. The project was funded through the European Union's Horizon Europe program.
Growing volumes of electronic health care devices containing batteries, electronics and materials such as copper, gold, lithium and rare earth elements routinely are incinerated at the end of their lives, even though they could contain functional components and recyclable materials that could be recovered and reused, DiCE participants say.
'Digital health technologies are transforming health care. Millions of devices, from diabetes sensors and blood pressure monitors to advanced surgical instruments, are helping patients live longer, healthier lives while making care more personalized, efficient and effective. But the rapid growth of this market is creating a largely overlooked problem: a fast-growing stream of electronic waste,” says Pascal Leroy, director general of the Brussels-based WEEE Forum. “DiCE has shown how to mitigate that problem and recover increasingly precious and strategically critical raw materials.'
Project participants say they examined every stage of the life cycle of several digital health care products, from product design and manufacturing through collection, refurbishment, reuse and recycling. Researchers also tested circular business models, consumer behavior, reverse logistics systems and new policy approaches across Europe.
Although no comprehensive global estimate of medical e-scrap volume exists, those involved in the project say that evidence suggests the problem is growing. Project research claims that some 83 million wearable medical devices were placed on the European market in 2020 and globally could approach 2 billion devices annually by 2050 if current trends continue.
According to the United Nations, global e-scrap exceeds 62 million metric tons annually and is projected to reach 82 million metric tons by 2030.
The DiCE report recommends redesigning the health care ecosystem, including:
considering the ability to repair, refurbish and remanufacture devices and extend their service lives when designing medical devices;
introducing digital product passports and detailed bills of materials to improve recovery of valuable components and critical raw materials;
expanding convenient collection and return systems through pharmacies and other trusted locations;
better aligning medical device regulations and sustainable product design rules so environmental goals complement patient safety requirements; and
developing new circularity indicators that reward lifetime extension, reuse and repair rather than recycling alone.
According to the European Commission, 80 percent of the product’s environmental impact is determined at the design stage. Four design case studies, developed via the DiCE project with clinicians, engineers and users, feed into a five-step Circular Design Guide. Project participants say the document integrates circular thinking into existing digital health development processes; it doesn't replace them or ask teams to start from the beginning. Cleanability, disassembly, component lifetimes, clinical workflows and traceability all were found to be essential across its case studies.
'The health care sector increasingly depends on digital technologies, yet many devices are designed to be used and discarded,” says Tamara Hoveling from the Netherlands’ TU Delft University of Technology, the lead author of the 'Circular Design Guide.' “The challenge this project faced was to preserve clinical performance and patient safety while extending product life, recovering valuable materials and reducing environmental impacts. Delivered by the DiCE project is the first integrated blueprint for circular designing of medical devices.”
The project’s participants say one of its most important contributions is a series of detailed life cycle assessments examining the environmental impacts of representative digital health care products.
Researchers say they found that electronic components dominate the environmental footprint of individual products, though studies revealed that redesigning health care systems often produces greater environmental gains than redesigning the devices themselves.
Among the findings are:
Reusable electrocardiogram (ECG) lead sets reduced environmental impacts by 81-94 percent compared with disposable alternatives. Once reuse systems were introduced, cleaning and sterilization became the primary environmental hotspot.
Electronic pharmaceutical labels reduced climate impacts associated with drug manufacturing by approximately 27 percent by allowing medicines to remain usable when label information changed instead of requiring entire batches to be discarded.
Powered electronic surgical staplers reduced the overall climate impact of surgery by about 12 percent because of shorter procedures and hospital stays more than offset the additional electronics.
Smart pillboxes represented only a tiny fraction of the overall environmental footprint of a patient's treatment pathway, demonstrating that health care system design often matters far more than the device itself.
Project participants say the studies demonstrate that improving health care sustainability requires changes across clinical workflows, logistics, product design and recovery systems rather than focusing only on materials inside individual devices.
Consumer pilots involving 414 participants in Belgium, Spain and Slovenia found that more than 60 percent of participants were willing to return unwanted health care devices when convenient collection systems were available.
The report also claims that health care can reduce electronic waste without compromising clinical performance or patient safety.
'Digital technologies are redefining health care through connected devices, [artificial intelligence] and data-driven care. Yet this transformation also increases demand for materials, energy and resources,” says Caroline Allard, senior sustainability manager at Philips. “Our challenge as manufacturers is to decouple better health outcomes from greater environmental impact—by designing products, services and business models that keep materials in use for longer and minimize waste.”
DiCE says the top five findings from the research include:
Health care devices, such as blood pressure monitors, glucose meters, hearing aids and smart watches, contain copper, gold, lithium and rare earth elements. Many are incinerated at their end of life, which wastes resources.
Reuse dramatically can reduce environmental impacts. For example, reusable ECG lead sets reduced environmental impacts by 81-94 percent compared with disposable alternatives.
The biggest environmental savings could come from smarter system design.
Digital technologies sometimes can reduce overall environmental impacts when they improve healthncare efficiency, shorten hospital stays or reduce waste elsewhere in the system.
Most people have no idea what to do with used medical devices. Better collection systems make doing the right thing much easier.
This is one of the few environmental problems with a practical solution. Unlike many environmental challenges, the tools already exist: better design, repair, refurbishment, collection systems, recycling and clearer rules.
Courtesy: www.wastetodaymagazine.com