Reducing Plastic in Home Testing Kits: The shuttlepac Solution!
Reducing Plastic in Home Testing Kits: The shuttlepac Solution!
If you compare the size of the ShuttlePouch™ (our UN3373 compliant packaging solution for biohazard transport) to 3 of our direct competitors, we have on average a 73 % reduction in plastic. If you consider that on W/C 12.05.2021 there were 1,794,634 coronavirus PCR tests performed, switching to ShuttlePouch™ as a packaging solution would mean you would only be employing the amount of plastic currently used for 484,500 PCR tests – a huge reduction!
Reacting to the Pandemic: Home Testing Kits
Home testing kits are proving to be a brilliant solution for the COVID-19 pandemic. They have helped track and trace the virus from the comfort of our own homes and are helping us protect each other in these (hopefully!) final throes of the pandemic [1]. It seems likely that future outbreaks will likely introduce further forms of home-testing kits, which as previously mentioned could greatly benefit in a packaging solution that minimises plastic footprint and environmental impact. Whether patients are elderly or less mobile, it’s critical that self-diagnosis is available and not creating a future environmental hazard!
It’s not just COVID!
The English NHS Bowel Screening Programme is another example of home testing effectively-being rolled out across the nation [2]. As we know, an early cancer diagnosis is far more likely to be able to be successfully treated than a later one, so upregulation of screening has been a big focus in recent years. Similarly to testing for COVID-19, there are numerous advantages to this. It essentially cuts out the middleman, and for Bowel cancer in particular, it can be embarrassing handing over your sample to the doctor to say the least [3]! So, through home testing the patient can directly collect the biological sample and send it straight to the laboratory for analysis!
Biohazards and Leakage
The biggest problem faced by home testing is that potentially infectious substances are biohazards [4], and these must be properly contained to prevent the spread of infection. Single use plastic must be employed in case of sample leakage, with the ShuttlePouch™ we also employ an in-built absorbent material that guarantees it as 100% leak-proof compliant secondary packaging.
ShuttlePouch™ – The Way Forward!
At shuttlepac, we have made it our mission to produce the highest quality packaging solutions with great emphasis on minimising environmental impact and plastic wastage. Compared to all competing brands, we have a far lower plastic footprint and categorically avoid large and unnecessary plastic bags and tubes. Undoubtably the way forward for home testing kits, for both COVID-19 and other diseases, is employing the superior packaging solution, the ShuttlePouch™.
We cannot be sure how long we as a nation will have to continue to use COVID-19 home test kits, but regardless of that, we can predict that home-testing will continue long into the future for other health issues. The build-up of plastic in our environment is one of the most significant ongoing issues that we will face globally, so it is crucial for sustainability to face this problem and to tackle it wherever we can!
Check out our website for more information on all of our sustainable packaging solutions.
Sources:
[2] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/bowel-cancer-screening-programme-overview 2021
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4220220/ 2014
[4] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/lab-biosafety-guidelines.html