Solutions to health care waste: life-cycle thinking and "green" purchasing.

Abstract

Health care waste treatment is linked to bioaccumulative toxic substances, such as mercury and dioxins, which suggests the need for a new approach to product selection. To address environmental issues proactively, all stages of the product life cycle should be considered during material selection. The purchasing mechanism is a promising channel for action that can be used to promote the use of environmentally preferable products in the health care industry; health care facilities can improve environmental performance and still decrease costs. Tools that focus on environmentally preferable purchasing are now emerging for the health care industry. These tools can help hospitals select products that create the least amount of environmental pollution. Environmental performance should be incorporated into the evolving definition of quality for health care.

Assessing supplier environmental performance: Applying Analytical Hierarchical Process in the United Arab Emirates healthcare chain

“…The purchasing mechanism has been reported to be a promising channel for material selection that can improve the environmental performance of the healthcare chain but the focus has been on the reduction of mercury emissions by purchasing mercuryfree products [12]. The emphasis in the healthcare industry seems to be on the 'green' opportunities downstream of the health care facility such as waste treatment [13,14].…”

Endobronchial Ultrasonography Versus Mediastinoscopy: A Single-Institution Cost Analysis and Waste Comparison

“…A variety of original articles in the surgery, medicine, and anesthesiology literature have focused on different aspects of the environmental impact of health care, such as waste generation [9][10][11], reusable versus disposable items [12][13][14], and life-cycle analyses [12,13]. Interestingly, reports also indicate that environmentally conscious practices are cost-effective [8,[15][16][17].…”

Evaluation of Green Hospital Dimensions in Teaching and Private Hospitals Covered by Tehran University of Medical Sciences

“…Health care services consume large amounts of water and energy, use significant volume of hazardous and non-hazardous materials and are responsible for emissions [2]. In United State, hospitals are the second part of energy high consumptions and they consume energy twice that of conventional buildings [3]. Brazilian hospitals use more that 10% of the country's total commercial energy by consume vast amounts of energy [4].…”