Medical remanufacturing facility boosting Victoria’s circular economy

A new manufacturing facility in Geelong is bringing sustainable recycling capabilities to the healthcare system, thanks to support from the Victorian Government.

Medsalv recently opened a manufacturing and R&D facility in Geelong which will remanufacture single-use medical devices from Australian hospitals locally for safe use. The facility’s process involves sorting, cleaning, testing, inspecting, packaging and relabelling of products to prevent them from going into landfill.

The facility will create up to 49 new jobs in the Geelong region. Medsalv is a certified social enterprise and will prioritise employment for people that experience barriers to employment.

The company’s product remanufacturing portfolio currently includes patient transfer mattresses, deep vein thrombosis prevention sleeves, blood pressure cuffs and tourniquets. This is set to expand through its R&D activity, which will investigate new methods and technologies for remanufacturing other single use medical devices.

The new facility is located in ManuFutures at Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds Campus, right next to other world leading advanced manufacturing businesses and university researchers, which will facilitate collaboration to develop, field test and make new products.

Last year, the Victorian Government supported the extension of ManuFutures with a $10 million investment from the Victorian Higher Education State Investment Fund. Dubbed ‘ManuFutures 2’, the new facility enables businesses to access product engineering services, incubator programs and spaces for training and collaboration.