Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Packaging
Highly valued for adaptability, protective properties, and cost-effectiveness, plastics are uniquely suited to meet the stringent standards and requirements of the medical and healthcare packaging industry. Plastics enable innovations that help protect healthcare products from damage, keep ingredients safe, and guard against contamination.
Plastic packaging can be found throughout the healthcare environment, including thermoformed blister packs and trays, as well as caps, bottles, vials, pouches, bags, and overwrap. Plastics are the workhorse at the heart of medical packaging solutions that must meet the medical and pharmaceutical industry’s rigorous compliance requirements.
Plastics are the perfect materials for shipping and storing intricate devices, drugs, and other medical instruments. Whether they’re essential medical supplies such as IV bags and syringes or lifesaving medical devices such as incubators and dialysis machines, plastics help improve health and save lives around the world.
Sustainability Outlook
Protecting product integrity remains the primary goal of healthcare packaging, but as in all areas of the packaging industry, there is ongoing work on source reduction. Additionally there is a growing trend of incorporating recycled content in secondary product packaging applications, such as package overwrap and pallets.
Additionally, the Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council (HPRC) is working to help boost plastics recycling in clinical settings of hospitals. HPRC and the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) recently completed a pilot project in the Chicago area to radically increase hospital plastics.
More Industries
See what other industries benefit from plastic packaging innovation.
Types of Plastics
Learn more about the different types of plastics used in packaging.