Blog posts tagged ‘healthcare waste’

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Large pile of scissors on chrome table.

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.
Poster for the Levi Symposium.
12 Nov 2024

Levi Symposium: The Value(s) of Disposability in Health Care

At the Levi Symposium, scholars and practitioners explored whether healthcare must trade safety, efficacy, or efficiency for sustainability—or if durable, low-carbon alternatives can achieve all.
Medical waste sits outside a medical facility in Senegal
04 Feb 2024

Clean and Dirty: Hygiene and Medical Waste

Our team at CRCF in Senegal organised a two week workshop for research assistants in the Social Sciences.
The Thinker’s Burden sculpture by artist Benjamin Von Wong, displayed outside the Palais des Nations for the duration of the plastics treaty negotiations.

Reflections on the UN Plastics Treaty negotiation from an After the Single Use delegate

Blog posts

At the UN’s Geneva talks, 184 countries failed again to agree a plastics treaty - yet momentum grows for bold, health-centred action against plastic pollution worldwide.
A waste disposal worker holds up two handfuls of plastic waste that cannot be recycled

Plastics and human health: what’s at stake in the global treaty talks in Geneva

Media items

Global talks in Geneva could decide whether a plastics treaty protects human health - or bows to industry pressure. The outcome may shape pollution, toxic exposure, and public safety for generations.
A personal phone shows a photo of the researcher's dog alongside the medical equipment they are dissecting

Photo Stories and Photo Voice: Collecting Things in After the Single Use

Blog posts

How can photo stories and photovoice help us rethink single-use medical devices - revealing their benefits, harms, and ethical challenges - while amplifying marginalised voices and reshaping collaboration in healthcare research?
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.
A researcher teases apart the different layers of a single-use mask

Do medical masks have to be disposable?

Academic publications

Once described as "Medicine's Magic Throwaways", single-use plastics are a growing environmental problem. But what if there was a smarter, greener way? Reusable and biodegradable masks could reshape healthcare, cutting waste without compromising protection. 
Medical implement discarded on road

Plastics in health care: rethinking medical device innovation, use, and disposal for sustainability

Academic publications

The virtues of medical plastics have a dark side: where do discarded devices go? Can we redesign them to reduce, reuse, or recycle our way towards a more sustainable economy?
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