The health care industry has a garbage problem.
It’s not just that hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics and other health facilities generate several billion pounds of garbage each year: buried in that mountain of trash are untold numbers of unused disposable medical devices as well as used but recyclable supplies and equipment, from excess syringes and gauze to surgical instruments.
The problem, fueled by a shift toward the use of disposables that made it simple to keep treatment practices sterile, has been an open secret for years, but getting the health care industry to change its habits has not been easy. No organization currently tracks how much medical trash the United States produces — the last known estimate, from the early 1990s, was two million tons a year.
Only recently has the industry begun grappling with the amount of waste it generates, and one reason is that financially stressed hospitals are seeking ways to cut costs.
“We’ve just seen a sea change,” said Cecilia DeLoach Lynn, director of sustainability education at Practice Greenhealth, a nonprofit group in Reston, Va., that is working to shrink the environmental footprint of health care institutions.
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