Expertise

Circular Economy - using waste as an asset and raw material for manufacturing new products.

Awards

Circular Instrument Management
Green Quest special recognition Award - BNR Newsradio - Monday 1 July 2019

Biography

Bart van Straten studied Business Administration at the European University. After his Bachelor he completed his Master in Business Administration at European University/EU Business School. He moved to Brussels where he completed a Master in International Trade (MIT) at Institut Cooremans (a French public Institute for Public Administration) /EU Business School double degree in 1996.
He started to work in the consultancy business while also taking aviation lessons at Rotterdam Airport. In 1997 he went to Flight Safety Academy for aviation training and the NLS and became an Airline Transport Pilot with an EASA Professional Pilot License B3/IR. At the same time he worked at Van Straten Medical, a company worldwide active with surgical instruments and products.
In 2008 he followed political learning programs at the Haya van Someren Stichting Debating, parliamentary debating techniques, presentation techniques) and became member of the program committee to write the election program in The Hague for the Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie in 2010. After having acquired two companies – Medical Repairs and Flexclean Medical – he became partner of McMillian & Company, a publisher for higher and post-doc education in The Hague.
In 2012 Bart became member of the Board of Sociëteit De Witte, founded in 1782, with two monumental buildings in The Hague (www.societeitdewitte.nl).

After he handed over the first instrument mesh basket, made from recycled materials, to the Minister for Health, Welfare and Sports, Bruno Bruins, in 2018 he dedicated himself to research and a PhD. He co-founded GreenCycl, an organization for making healthcare more sustainable. After attending Graduate School (Faculty Graduate School through Mechanical Engineering) at Delft University of Technology and starting-up his first research, he joined the research-line 'Sustainable Surgery & Translational Technology' of Tim Horeman. 
As co-author and chairman of the NEN Platform 'Sustainability & Medical Devices' he was involved in writing the national NEN-3 guideline for reusing single-use medical devices which was published by NEN on 1 June 2020. After completing the University Teaching Qualification (BKO/UTQ) at TU Delft Teaching Academy in 2021 and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Bart focused on integrating sustainable engineering and circular design in education as a teacher and lecturer.  
EXPERTISE   A meeting between him, his children and the Dutch Astronaut Andre Kuipers inspired him to find new solutions for the alarming increase of waste our society has to deal with. He demonstrated that our Earth is fragile and deteriorating. Bart started to deepen his knowledge regarding possible sustainable solutions such as the circular economy where waste is minimized. Recycling stainless steel, refurbishment instead of replacing with new. Finding out new solutions, especially for hospital waste – he wanted to commit himself to research. The best option in an academic setting. He started to conduct experiments and specialize himself in the circular reuse of surgical instruments.  
The earth’s population in 1800 counted 1 billion, having taken all of human history to reach that number. Only 2 centuries later, the global population reaches 8 billion. If the growth of the demand from the growing population continues at this rate, by 2030 with a global population of 10 billion people, two Earths will be needed to satisfy all of the population’s demands. Preventing waste, protecting our natural resources and making healthcare more sustainable has become a personal mission.

Projects

Haaglanden Medisch Centrum: Westeinde Hospital, Bronovo Hospital, Antoniushove, VUmc, Maasstad Ziekenhuis:

How circular economy technology contributes to sustainable instrument management

B.J. van Straten, T. Horeman

Circularity for sustainable surgery:

1. Recycling of basic materials from disposed surgical instruments.

2.Minimizing instrument replacement by using modular design methods that extend the life cycle
of instruments.

In 2018 and 2019 different scientific experiments as well as actual business cases were carried out where hospital waste was used as raw material for new medical products.

Surgical instruments were collected, repaired and refurbished into new manufacturing’s condition.

Non-repairable instruments, used disposable instruments and other stainless steel waste was collected and melted into metal sheet (plates).

These plates were used for the manufacturing of components for mesh baskets and FlexClean Medical flushing tools.

More than one ton of rejected instruments were collected from four different hospitals during a period of 24 months.

Some instruments needed to be separated on material specification.

95% of the waste consisted stainless steel that was completely recyclable.

The remaining 5% consisted of plastic wrappings and protective caps, valves and aluminum labels/ tags.

Read more