News
As a responsible local business, Mediclinic is committed to achieving zero waste to landfill.
To achieve this, the organisation has implemented a structured waste hierarchy approach that prioritises refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and recover, while ensuring full legislative compliance.
According to Liezl Myburgh, Manager: Environmental Management Systems and Training, “This vision is embedded across Mediclinic Southern Africa facilities through ISO 14001–aligned environmental management systems, leadership commitment, staff awareness programmes, and continuous improvement initiatives at hospital and corporate office level.” She explains further that the intent is not only to minimise environmental impact, but also to manage waste responsibly, protecting patients, staff, communities, and the environment in which Mediclinic operates.
With 50 hospitals and Corporate and Regional offices, Mediclinic’s landfill diversion performance varies by facility, the maturity of waste segregation practices, and available recycling infrastructure. Traditional recycling already diverts a significant proportion of Mediclinic’s non-risk waste from landfill, demonstrating strong progress, with an average diversion rate of 75%. This includes recycling and food waste recovery.
The challenge lies with waste that cannot currently be recycled through traditional channels. In a healthcare environment, several waste streams cannot be recycled through conventional municipal or commercial recycling systems, including Healthcare Risk Waste such as contaminated disposables, sharps and anatomical waste. Another is composite or multi-layered materials, including certain medical packaging that combines plastics, foils and paper.
Uncontaminated plastics—such as IV drip bags or tubing not exposed to antibiotics or bodily fluids, as well as certain disposable clinical items—are designed for single use but can, in fact, be diverted through innovative solutions.
These waste streams are managed separately to ensure patient safety and legal compliance and are excluded from standard recycling routes. Mediclinic is actively seeking sustainable, financially viable recycling routes to achieve our ultimate goal of zero waste to landfill.
Traditional recycling is not possible due to a combination of factors:
- Infection and contamination risk, which prevents manual sorting and standard recycling
- Strict healthcare legislation governing the handling, transport and treatment of medical waste
- Material complexity, where products are made of bonded or mixed materials that cannot easily be separated
- Lack of established recycling markets for certain healthcare-specific materials
It is thus essential that new and innovative recyclers are identified who can safely or legally process these materials using non-conventional methods. One such supplier is Zerocrete, which has developed innovative concrete-type products using a broad range of waste products being recycled by Mediclinic, including drip bags, plastic containers, plastic privacy curtains and other suitable non-hazardous plastic waste streams. In addition, textiles such as old uniforms, linen and curtains.
These materials are collected, sorted and mechanically processed (shredded, granulated or cut) before being integrated into a high-performance cement-based composite system. In this scenario, Zerocrete replaces up to 70% of traditional cement content with their LC2 (Limestone Calcined Clay Cement) system, significantly reducing the embodied carbon footprint of the final product. The result is not just recycling — it is material transformation with carbon reduction.
Each product is engineered to meet its functional requirements — structural, decorative, lightweight, or furniture-grade. But unlike traditional concrete products, these have enhanced performance due to composite engineering principles:
- Fibre reinforcement from textiles helps control cracking
- Processed plastics contribute to internal reinforcement and density control
- Glass and mineral fractions increase compressive strength
- LC2 improves microstructure density and long-term durability
- Reduced porosity enhances lifespan
The result is a dense, durable, mechanically stable material suitable for furniture, vanities,
garden furniture, decorative panels, planters and pots, as well as architectural features. The inclusion of Mediclinic’s own waste streams makes each product unique and traceable to its origin.
Introduction of this technology has expanded the Benefits for Mediclinic, including:
- Waste diversion from landfill
- Up to 70% reduction in cement-related CO₂
- Tangible circular economy implementation
- Internal waste transformed into permanent assets
The local and on-site nature of this process also creates an opportunity to train previously unemployed individuals, develop skills in material processing and fabrication, create dignified employment, and improve emotional and economic conditions.
