Press
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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Blueprints for Pangaea is Recruiting for F25!
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Are you interested in joining our organization and creating a tangible impact by helping reduce medical waste inefficiencies? Come join us at our mass meeting on September 2nd in the Michigan Room at the League from 6:30-8 PM.
RECENT SHIPMENTS
📍DELONIS CENTER
Shipment Date: April 2025
Shipment Size: 100 lbs
Estimated Valuation: $1300
RECENT ACTIVITIES
High School Internship
This summer, Arya, Ayaan, and Shruthika joined Blueprints for Pangaea to dive into department work, explore pressing health equity issues, and launch their own passion projects. Read more about our summer high school interns and their passion project →
EDUCATION
Undergraduate Journal of Public Health
Where healthcare and sustainability intersect: The fight against medical waste
By Liya Berry and Ruhi Gulati
Every Saturday morning, a group of 20-something Michigan students drive down to a warehouse in Ann Arbor and roll open the gate to an unexpected site— rows of cardboard boxes on boxes at least five feet high, all filled to the brim with thousands of random, unused medical supplies that were headed towards one place: the landfill. Ranging from syringes to knee braces to alcohol prep pads, these pallets of unopened, perfect condition medical supplies from Michigan Medicine are intercepted, saving over $250,000-worth of equipment from being thrown out. These supplies are then inventoried by the college students, to clinics across the world that provide free medical care for those with barriers to basic healthcare. Everywhere on the news we hear political debates about healthcare spending, like cuts to Medicaid or the benefits of universal healthcare. But this is not a story about the tremendous amounts of money that goes into healthcare, it is about the mass of money coming out, or rather getting dumped straight into the trash can. When discussing healthcare affordability, policy is often at the forefront of the conversation around cost reduction; however, a much more attainable way is often overlooked— reducing medical waste.
WE'RE IN THE NEWS
Student-run nonprofit provides hundreds of excess medical supplies to Ann Arbor hospitals, with plans to send more
Blueprints for Pangaea, a student-run 501(c)(3) medical surplus recovery organization (MSRO), coordinated a donation of around 700 plastic face shields to Packard Health, Hope Clinic, Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County, and SafeHouse Center, thanks to a generous donation of PPE from Crawford Industries and Systematics, Inc.
College Towns Are The Next Big Thing For Startups
With nearly 50% of millennials looking to start their own business in the next three years, it is not a surprise that the new generation of entrepreneurs aren’t based – or even particularly interested – in Silicon Valley. With students and recent graduates all over the country experiencing startup fever, college towns may just be the next big thing for entrepreneurship. Even though nearly 47% of venture capital deal value in the U.S. goes to the West Coast, other startup hubs are rising. Cities such as Columbus, OH, St. Louis, MO, and Denver, CO, offer burgeoning and diverse economies with a dense concentration of college students – Ohio State, Washington University and University of Denver, respectively. Along with lower costs of living, the talent and technology emerging from college towns have become a magnet for startups and VC dollars.
Students send supplies to overseas hospitals
Ben Rathi went on a trip to Nepal in 2013 as a University of Michigan student. He visited a major hospital that lacked even the most basic medical supplies, and when he returned to the United States, he saw those same supplies being thrown away in American hospitals.
Op-Ed: Medical supply reallocation, saving lives and the environment
While many of us spent Spring Break sunbathing on warm beaches, visiting friends and family or indulging in an unhealthy dose of Netflix while huddled under a mass of warm blankets, hundreds of University of Michigan students travelled to the most impoverished regions of the world to bring about positive social change. These service-oriented students witnessed, for a week, what hundreds of millions of people experience throughout their lifetimes: Ravaging illnesses, systemic impoverishment and minimal access to basic health care.
Former Gubernatorial Candidate, Public Health Analyst address global health issues in annual symposium
"While the United States healthcare system proliferates the production of carbon emission and adds to already copious amounts of waste in global landfills, there’s a clear need— there are people, there are children, abroad[....]" -The Michigan Daily
MSU Today, Max Sandler: Making a Difference
"Originally, I wanted to join a student organization because I felt it was a simple way to make a difference. I never imagined the kind of work we would be doing. Our organization may soon bring the rate of medical waste in the entire city of Lansing close to zero, while sending critical supplies to places other than a landfill."-MSU Today
Don’t toss medical supplies. University of Michigan students can send them to areas in need
ANN ARBOR, MI - Two weeks ago, University of Michigan students sent 3,000 pounds of medical supplies to northern Syria to deal with the tens of thousands injured by February’s deadly earthquake. On Friday, these same students are sending more supplies to Hospital General de Mexico in Mexico City. Who are these students and where do they get the supplies to help these places in need? Their group, Blueprints for Pangaea, works with partners to redirect surplus medical supplies about to be discarded and sends them to affected areas across the world.