Reduce, reuse, recycle? Not in the medical profession. While recycling has become the aspiration or even the norm in most areas of our daily lives, an operating room is the one place where recycling feels like a dangerous practice. Recent studies provide staggering statistics of the amount of waste produced by hospitals on a daily basis; one conservative estimate puts annual hospital waste at 5.9 million tons, with operating rooms accounting for twenty to thirty percent of that total. In light of these numbers, there is a growing effort to bring sustainability into the health care sector while still maintaining the highest level of hygiene.
Laura Wenger is a registered nurse and executive director of Practice Greenhealth, a non-profit organization whose aim is to help the healthcare sector move towards a more sustainable model. We spoke with her about making operating rooms more green.
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