Diabetes Technology and Waste: A Complex Story

Abstract

Medical products are used increasingly by patients with diabetes as they make diabetes therapy more safe and efficient; subsequently such products are produced and used millions of times each day. This in turn means that the products themselves and the packaging adds up to a huge amount of waste, mainly plastic waste. Not only patients are well aware of this and start to complain about this, in view of the climate change the political pressure to change the situation is high and will increase further. A better balance between performance of the products and their environmental impact has to be found; however, diabetes technology and waste is a complex story with many different aspects.