Reduce Medical Waste by Recycling Medical Equipment

Reusing medical devices designated as single-use seems dubious. Sharing anything appears to be a surefire path to catastrophe, particularly during the pandemic. However, it plays an essential role in reducing healthcare costs and its carbon footprint.
Throughout the pandemic, medical refuse has become an even larger issue. Reprocessing is an unfamiliar activity in the healthcare industry, which was created specifically to reduce hospital costs. This industry could prove indispensable in the struggle against climate change.

Increasing the Scope of Single-Use Medical Items

Health Affairs, a prominent journal of health policy thought and research, states that if hospitals were a nation, they would be the fourth largest source of pollution. Just think of the millions of pieces of personal protective equipment worn and discarded daily by healthcare professionals. And that is only a fraction of the daily materials they use. According to some specialists, the solution is simple: Reprocess/recycle “single-use” medical equipment and eradicate waste in excess of 7,100 tons.

Types of Single-use Items for Reprocessing

What are these single-use items that should be reprocessed? There are numerous single-use items that have a longer useful lifespan. These include disposable medical scissors and surgical instruments such as blood pressure monitors, intra-aortic balloon pumps, trocars, coronary angioplasty catheters, biopsy forceps, pulse oximeter sensors, and pulse oximeter sensors.

Reprocessors are regarded manufacturers. Their procedures are aimed to avoid cross-contamination and guarantee the reusability of medical devices. Reprocessors are governed in the same way as original manufacturers and must adhere to the same regulatory requirements that were in place when the device was initially manufactured.

Is it Possible to Establish A Circular Economy in the Medical Field?

Reverse engineering single-use medical devices is a solution suggested by researchers from Yale and other institutions to reduce costs and, most importantly, to minimize pollution from medical waste. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has regulated this practice for over 2 decades. However, outside of the industry, its availability is not widely known. And only a small fraction of equipment that could be reprocessed is in fact reprocessed. In spite of this, the reprocessing industry has increased in size on average every year for the past 20 years, diverting 15 million pounds of medical refuse from landfills and saving hospitals and surgical centers $544 million.

The Association of Medical Device Reprocessors (AMDR) supports the global interests of corporations that are authorized to reprocess medical devices. They compile annual member data to demonstrate that waste diversion and hospital savings are directly attributable to the efforts of their members. According to the Association of Medical Device Reprocessors, over 8,000 hospitals utilize controlled, reprocessed single-use medical devices, thereby reducing exorbitant waste transportation costs. In 2019, 100% of the top hospitals ranked by U.S. News & World Report used reprocessed single-use medical devices.

Reprocessing businesses gather, organize, clean, sanitize, test, disinfect, and send back millions of medical devices to tens of thousands of hospitals at a 30 to 40% savings compared to purchasing new devices. The reprocessed equipment is just as secure and effective as the original equipment, and it allows hospitals to manage the supply line and plan for future hazards with more bandwidth. In 2019, AMDR stated that over 15 million pounds of medical waste has been removed from landfills due to the reprocessing of single-use medical devices.

Your Involvement in Medical Waste

We live in a culture of disposable healthcare, with critical environmental consequences. The burning of healthcare waste produces air pollutants that can make people ill, thereby increasing the burden on the healthcare system.

We all generate medical waste in our pandemic-ridden society. Gloves, masks, bottles of hand sanitizer, and other coronavirus refuse have already been discovered on beaches and seabeds. Approximately 75 percent of used masks and other pandemic-related refuse will likely wind up in landfills or on the ocean floor. OceansAsia predicts that in 2020, over 1.56 billion face masks will end up in the world’s oceans.

How to Achieve a Circular Economy

According to an analysis published in Health Affairs, the supply chain is responsible for the majority of healthcare systems’ air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The coronavirus has shed light on the weaknesses in the supply chain for healthcare and necessitated a more durable and cost-effective healthcare system. According to Health Affairs, there is an excessive reliance on single-use medical devices.

Recycle and Dispose Medical Equipment

Maintaining medical devices in circulation for as long as possible before disposal will reduce the daily production of massive quantities of medical waste and promote a circular economy.

Are you willing to embrace the challenge of improving the recycling performance of your hospital? 1 Green Planet securely recycles a variety of hazardous medical detritus. Call them immediately to arrange a pickup at their service locations.