Alissa MacMillan
Q: I had to go to the hospital recently and couldn’t believe how much waste is generated from items being used and thrown away. Is anyone trying to remedy this?
A: The amount of single use items making their way in and out of hospitals would boggle the mind, much of it containing plastic and most of it headed straight for landfill or the incinerator. As just one example, hospitals in Ireland use about 50 million single-use aprons a year. You heard that right, 50 million!
This is where cousins Lisa O’Riordan and Dr. Mary O’Riordan come in. In 2021, they founded HaPPE Earth, a Cork-based start-up with a laser-focus on creating fully compostable PPE for the healthcare sector. Their first product was aprons. The standard type are made with low density polyethylene or LDPE, which contains plastic and can take at least half a century to break down and, like so many other single-use items, might sometimes call itself “biodegradable,” but that mightn’t mean they are compostable, or able to break down in a few weeks.
HaPPE Earth’s aprons are another story. Made from thistle, their materials are mostly home compostable and are all industrial compostable, co-founder Lisa O’Riordan explains. They are also approved for use in healthcare settings. HaPPE buys the resin pellets from a European-based company and then works closely with a company in Limerick, which blows the mold that they then work with. They also partner with BILLD, a Belfast-based company, for software packaging and reporting, so “we are from all sides of Ireland,” O’Riordan says.
Because it is entirely compostable, even if HaPPE aprons go into landfill, they will break down because they’re starch-based. But their solution is even better – they are currently testing with hospitals a biodigester which, when combined with hospital food waste, goes through a 24-hour cycle that breaks down the material, leaving them with a “perfectly safe, pathogen-free” nitrogen-rich fertilizer, converting even more of the hospital’s compostable waste to something useful.
They have been working to get their aprons into healthcare and other settings, with great success. But it can be a long process.
“For people that have to wear them all the time there can be this sense of guilt,” O’Riordan adds, “but they are not the decision makers. They will come to us and then it has to go through a whole process of people.”
CIRCULAR MINDSET
While HaPPE products are “marginally more expensive,” they are a different product and do the same function, says O’Riordan. And they are certainly on to something, as HaPPE Earth is growing. They are currently branching out, adding shoe covers, beard nets, and hair nets, which are launching at the end of February.
“It’s an exciting phase that we’re in at the moment,” O’Riordan exclaims.
Beyond healthcare, they are getting a lot of interest from construction for data centres, pharmaceutical companies, and food processing facilities. “It’s a really easy change over; they look exactly the same, and it’s not like they’re changing their process.” If someone can make the decision, it’s a quick shift. But O’Riordan knows that those decisions can sometime be tough for companies, especially as they are up against a culture of “eat, wear, throw away, and that’s not my problem.”
But the HaPPE Earth team are of the mind that this kind of change is not that difficult. “They use all of these products all the time and almost don’t even see them,” O’Riordan says. “Yet if they couldn’t have them in the morning from China, the whole production side of their business shuts down.” To be both more Ireland-reliant and more sustainable, while reducing their waste, it’s all positive, she says. And while some need convincing of those benefits, there are others for whom “you don’t even have to sell it, they just get it.”
O’Riordan points to the importance of a tight-knit group of Ireland-based start-ups trying to get ideas of the circular economy out there. “All of us trying to do something different, it is a hard slog, trying to get people to think circular,” she explains, especially as they have to go up against that “buy-use-don’t care where it goes mindset.”
As for single-use items, there is some recognition that the problem isn’t going away. With, for example, foot covers, “it’s really hard to find solutions,” O’Riordan explains. “People are nervous and find the best thing is to throw it away just in case because the sterilization process is difficult.”
While it would be better to use something that can be reused or recycled, second best is to use something fully compostable. And this doesn’t mean products with enzymes that break down plastics, as these microplastics easily get into the water and soil. HaPPE Earth’s is completely plant based and returns to the earth after it’s used.
Underlying much of their motivation is the reality of climate change.
“There is still this very physical problem that we need to solve,” O’Riordan says. “We all have to live on this planet,” and the fact that “we are surrounded by plastics in our soil and water might not seem obvious now, but it will be soon,” she adds.
“There are enough people out there in the world to see that this can’t last,” she adds, noting the importance of getting policy to change, so circular economy-focused companies like theirs can compete with plastic. They also know that time is of the essence.
The O’Riordans see Ireland as a perfect place to lead the way, the island having already changed to compostable bags.
“We as a country are very good at being proactive. Once it goes out there, we are all a community psyche, if we see it as a good idea, let’s be progressive,” considering the full lifecycle of a product and the long-term consequences of waste accumulating.
“It’s just a mindset change,” O’Riordan adds, one that we can only hope comes soon. The good news is, “we have nature behind us.”
