Can medical waste go “green?”
Posted by Lisa Carey
Is it possible for hospitals and other medical providers to go even more “green?” Here are some recent innovations at hospitals in the US to cut down on hospital waste. Some would say that medical supplies could even be sterilized and then used again. What do you think?
With the current healthcare crisis and health coverage debates, anything that could cut hospital cost should certainly be on the operating table. Fortunately many ideas for saving money in the healthcare system will also make a healthier impact on the environment.
Did you know that hospitals are the second largest waste producers, beaten out for the gluttonous title only by the food industry?
-Healthcare facilities produce 6,600 tons of waste per day.
-As much as 80% of healthcare wastes are solids, including plastics, glass, metals and paper.
Breakdown of Hospital Solid Waste:
53% is paper
3% is metals
15% is plastics
17% if food or organics
-That number has been rising as many more “disposable” products are being used.
-Did you know that often health care facilities toss out the scissors used to remove stitches once? Can you imagine? Three snips and into the landfill they go.
-Did you know that recycled medical devices cost only half as much as new ones?
-Did you know that only a quarter of hospitals are using recycled devices?
John Hopkins University School of Medicine journal, Academic Medicine, recently published the results of a study investigating hospital waste. The findings:
-Many new instruments are used just once and thrown away.
-These same instruments would be perfectly safe to use if sterilized properly.
-Often a tool from the operating room is tossed simply because the package was opened, even if the tool was never used.
Dr. Martin Makary of John Hopkins says that items from towels and gowns to cutting devices could be sterilized or recalibrated and reused safely. He also says that pulse sensors like those worn on the finger, compression sleeves and drills for example, can be sent to reprocessing companies and recycled instead of being trashed.
Taking greener steps like these in hospitals would cut down on landfill waste as well as cutting healthcare cost.
Obviously it would be more eco-friendly to recycle hospital tools and items, but would it be safe?
The U.S. Government Accountability Office says that recycled medical devices are no riskier than new devices.
Health care facilities in Phoenix, Arizona taut a 15 million dollar savings annually by reusing recyclable medical devices that were previously thrown out.
The Worst Offender Award: Packaging
-Packaging accounts for up to 43% of all hospital trash.
Green Ideas in Hospitals:
That’s why idea innovative and eco-friendly ideas like those from nurses in the maternal and child health unit at the hospital in Santa Cruz, California are so crucial. Nurses realized that every time a baby was delivered that they were opening up three packages of supplies. Connie Gabriel-Wilson, RN and others convinced the suppliers to reduce those three packages into one. Eco-friendly hospital solutions like these can significantly reduce hospital waste.
In Portland, Oregon green conscious nurses were disappointed when gloves started arriving wrapped in plastic that wasn’t recyclable. These nurses collected 60 pounds of the plastic and sent it to the supplier and saying, “You need to change your packaging.” The result? The company started folding the gloves in half and reduced the packaging by half too.
Hospitals in Lowell, Massachusetts convinced a supplier to eliminate items from surgery packets that just weren’t used often enough. This green thinking saved 11,000 pounds of waste and $30,000 in wasted expenses.
As we look for more ways to fix our broken healthcare system, going green is once again a good way to save green too.
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I am shock to know that hospital are the second largest waste producer and glad to know that these wastage are recycled in the form of packaging. Thank you for sharing these innovative knowledge with us.