Medical Plastic Recycling Hits 1 Million Pounds

A strategic partnership between Brightmark and Lewis Salvage has passed a key milestone—over one million pounds of medical plastic waste recycled since July 2024. These aren’t your typical recyclables either. The program focuses on hard-to-process waste from medical device and orthopedic implant manufacturers, including complex packaging materials, foam, films, and polyethylene machining scraps that traditional recyclers can’t handle.

Operating from Warsaw, Indiana—a global orthopedic manufacturing hub—Lewis Salvage collects specialized medical waste through its Minimized Landfill Recycling Program. Materials are then shipped to Brightmark’s Circularity Center in Ashley, where advanced processing technologies convert them into reusable building blocks for circular products. Brightmark’s proprietary Plastics Renewal process is designed specifically to handle non-traditional plastic waste streams that standard recycling facilities reject.

With medical plastics making up roughly 25% of the 14,000 tons of daily waste from U.S. healthcare facilities, scalable recycling models like this are urgently needed. The majority of plastics—over 90%—still end up in landfills or the environment. This collaboration presents a working model for diverting niche medical waste streams and keeping them in circulation.

Scaling Circular Solutions for the Healthcare Industry

Since its launch, the partnership has more than doubled its output—from 400,000 pounds recycled initially to over one million in just over a year. 

"Surpassing the 1-million-pound mark is more than just a number; it's proof that advanced recycling technologies can make a real impact on the healthcare industry's plastic waste challenge. Our proprietary Plastics Renewal technology is at the core of this success, enabling us to recycle a broad range of plastics—including those from healthcare settings that would otherwise be discarded. Since launching this effort, we've increased the volume of plastics recycled and demonstrated a model for the recycling of medical plastics." said Bob Powell, Founder and CEO of Brighmark.

The effort is anchored in the region’s established orthopedic manufacturing sector, where demand for single-use sterile packaging and devices continues to rise. That increase comes with a sharp uptick in waste—especially plastics not easily processed through existing municipal systems. Brightmark’s recycling technology is tailored to meet this challenge head-on, allowing for expanded recovery of specialized plastic materials.

For Lewis Salvage, a fourth-generation recycler that processes up to 70 million pounds of material annually, the collaboration represents a shift toward deeper specialization. Since acquiring the family business in 2023, CEO Cary Lewis has expanded services to include zero-waste and secure product destruction solutions. "Our partnership with Brightmark is transforming waste into valuable materials, reducing landfill use, and creating new opportunities for businesses to join the circular economy,"

The broader context shows momentum across sectors: Brightmark reports recycling over nine million pounds of plastic overall and significant greenhouse gas reductions from its waste-to-energy initiatives. With sustainability pressures intensifying across industries, this kind of partnership signals what a practical circular economy approach can look like in healthcare and manufacturing.