disposability | After Single Use

A panel discussion with members of the project team at EAHMH 2025

28 Aug 2025

Pasts, Presents, and Futures of Plastics in Medicine

At EAHMH 2025, team members organised a panel exploring medicine’s shift to plastics, examining disposability, supply chains, waste, and sustainability while rethinking consumer culture and evolving medical care practices.

Hands wearing gloves are taking apart medical devices.

19 Dec 2025

Deconstructing Devices at MAE Vienna

At MAE 2025, Alice Street and Millie Marriott Webb’s lab dissected single-use medical plastics, tracing lifecycles and waste to rethink anthropological approaches to devices and environmental impact.

Syringes, packaging and masks: can we do without disposable plastic equipment in hospitals?

Media items

Can hospitals reduce their dependence on disposable plastics? Bruno Strasser contributes to a discussion on the history, risks, and trade-offs behind medical throwaway culture.

The satirical advert for the single-use plastic speculum satirising the pink colour to please women when most doctors are men

06 Aug 2025

“Tinged with a Feminine Pink”: Adverts, Art and Greenwashing

At our Edinburgh workshop, researchers turned frustrations with single-use plastics into satirical adverts, using humour and art to expose hidden harms and greenwashing in healthcare.

Long distance shot of the Diagnostic Discard: the making of a plastic pandemic exhibition

Can plastic waste from point-of-care diagnostics be reduced?

Academic publications

Point-of-care diagnostics are saving lives, but at a steep environmental cost. With billions of plastic tests discarded annually, can the healthcare industry reinvent diagnostics to be both effective and sustainable?

A plastic syringe lies next to other plastic medical waste including a enteral feeding bottle

Why are plastic syringes not being recycled?

Academic publications

Billions of plastic syringes end up in waste, fuelling a hidden environmental crisis. The technology to promote safe recycling already exists - if the healthcare sector can move beyond stigma to embrace these solutions.

Team members workshopping the factors leading to the disposability of X-rays.

05 Jul 2025

Contingencies: Researching Disposability in Healthcare through Historical Methods

How did single-use devices become the norm in healthcare - and what paths were lost along the way? Our "Contingencies" workshop explored history, possibilities, and alternative futures.

After the Single Use collaborators discuss the ethics of engagement.

03 Jul 2025

Ethical Reflections on Researching Medical Waste

How do we ethically research medical plastic waste in hospitals, waste sites, and communities while respecting privacy, avoiding harm, and fostering collaborative, non-exploitative relationships?

A researcher holds up one of several bottles containing parts of a Malaria RDT kit.

17 Jun 2025

Dissecting Disposable Medical Devices: Who do Single-Use Plastics Really Affect?

Are single-use medical plastics really safer - or just shifting harm elsewhere? This workshop unpacked the hidden risks, toxic legacies, and overlooked impacts of disposable healthcare devices.

Display case with Virustatic reusable face mask.

02 May 2025

Injecting Hope: The Race for a Covid-19 Vaccine, National Museums Scotland

The exhibition explored the rapid research, development, and delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine. For our team, it prompted reflection on vaccine inequity and the environmental impact of pandemic-related waste.

Blog posts tagged ‘disposability’

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