Heinemann Lutz, Unsöld Chris, Petry Sebastian Friedrich
Working Group Diabetes, Environment & Climate of the German Diabetes Association (DDG), Berlin, Germany.
Science Consulting in Diabetes GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany.
J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2025 Jul 16:19322968251358229. doi: 10.1177/19322968251358229.
Insulin pens are widely used by people with diabetes for insulin application. Most often ready-to-use pens are used; however, disposal of these pens generates a considerable amount of plastic waste. Until now such pens have almost always been disposed of with household waste. We recommend to establish a nationwide recycling process for insulin pens in Germany over the next few years (PenDE). Collecting and sorting of the finished pens have several facets, which are discussed in this commentary. It is primarily about recycling the actual product, ie, the finished pens, and not their packaging and packaging inserts. Such a project is only possible in close cooperation with the insulin pen manufacturers. The goal is to establish material cycles, ie, multiple use of materials such as recycled plastic.
胰岛素笔被糖尿病患者广泛用于注射胰岛素。最常使用的是即用型笔；然而，这些笔的丢弃会产生大量塑料垃圾。到目前为止，这类笔几乎总是与生活垃圾一起被丢弃。我们建议在未来几年内在德国建立一个全国性的胰岛素笔回收流程（PenDE）。成品笔的收集和分类有几个方面，本评论对此进行了讨论。主要是回收实际产品，即成品笔，而不是其包装和包装插页。这样一个项目只有在与胰岛素笔制造商密切合作的情况下才有可能实现。目标是建立材料循环，即对回收塑料等材料进行多次利用。
