Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Just about everyone will go to the hospital at some point in their lives. And if you look around, you’ll notice a lot of single-use items, from gloves to gowns. Is there anything hospitals can do to safely cut down on that waste?
We had Alina Ikram and Leena Mudawi from our Possibly Team look into this.
Alina Ikram: Hi, Megan!
Leena Mudawi: Hi!
Megan Hall: So, it seems like hospitals throw away a lot of stuff. What’s their impact on the environment?
Alina Ikram: Great question. Let’s start with greenhouse gas emissions. Studies vary pretty widely, but anywhere from 5 to 10% of the United State’s emissions come from the healthcare industry, depending on how you count.
Megan Hall: But what about the kind of stuff people throw away. Physical waste?
Leena Mudawi: There’s a lot of that too! One study looked at the waste created over 24 hours at a hospital unit with 20 beds.
Alina Ikram: On a typical day, the average American produces around 5 pounds of waste.
Leena Mudawi: But in the hospital, they found that every patient generated about 17 pounds of waste per day.
Megan Hall: Wow, that is a lot. Where is it coming from?
Alina Ikram: In that study, the largest mass of waste came from the gowns surgeons and patients wear at the hospital to protect them from contamination.
Kaiyi Wang: Textile is a big waste component for healthcare, because we use a lot of disposable textile including surgical gowns, isolation gowns…
Leena Mudawi: That’s Kaiyi Wang, a sustainability analyst at UCSF health. She works to implement sustainable practices in healthcare facilities. She says there are a lot of reasons why these single use gowns make sense.
Alina Ikram: For one, they’re sterile and clean right out of the packaging, and get thrown out after surgery, so clinicians can be sure there’s no contamination between patients
Leena Mudawi: For reusable gowns to be that sanitary, you need to clean and sterilize them, and that process can use a lot of energy, as well as time.
Alina Ikram: And there's also a price difference with disposable gowns-
Kaiyi Wang: They’re mass produced…it has become so cheap, that sometimes it's hard
to break even when you try to transition to reusable product
Megan Hall: Ok, so reusable gowns are more expensive, and sanitizing them uses up a lot of time and energy. But disposables create a lot of waste. Where do we go from here?
Leena Mudawi: Well, here’s one thing to consider-hospitals use a lot of different kinds of medical gowns. And not all of them have to go through an intensive sanitation process.
Alina Ikram: To find out more, we talked to Dr Francois Luks, the pediatric surgeon in chief at Hasbro Children's Hospital. He says there are four levels of medical gowns.
Dr Francois Luks: The lowest level is a technician drawing blood. Then at the other extreme level 4, If you have trauma surgeons, where there's a lot of blood and contaminants, of course those have to have the highest impermeability
Leena Mudawi: The low-level gowns are used by patients and staff as a shield from germs during routine care or visits. These get cleaned, but don’t require sterilization.
Alina Ikram: Which offers an opportunity to swap in reusable gowns.
Leena Mudawi: So, Dr. Luks says Hasbro Children’s Hospital uses a hybrid system- surgeons who deal with open wounds use disposable gowns, and anyone who’s not dealing with fluids can wear reusable gowns.
Megan Hall: How long do the reusable gowns last?
Alina Ikram: They can be laundered and reworn about 60 to 100 times before the hospital throws them out.
Megan Hall: But what about all of the energy and water that goes into washing them?
Leena Mudawi: Current research at some hospitals says reusable gowns are still better. According to Kaiyi Wang, the sustainability expert, one study found…
Kaiyi Wang: the reusable gown compared to the Disposable gowns, it reduced natural resources energy consumption by 64 percent, greenhouse gas emissions by 66 percent…solid waste regeneration by 84 percent.
Alina Ikram: Despite the energy cost of laundering reusable medical gowns, using them over and over again reduces the emissions and waste that come from producing, transporting, and packaging new gowns.
Megan Hall: OK! So, it looks like the best approach is for hospitals to use this hybrid system- disposable gowns for procedures, and reusable gowns for daily treatment?
Leena Mudawi: Pretty much, at least that's what’s been researched and implemented so far.
Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Alina and Leena!
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at “ask possibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University's Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media and WBRU.
