Insights

The challenges that come with clinical waste

As long as patients need medical treatments, supplies are also needed. This is weighing heavily on the medical sector as it’s hard to control waste that needs to be sterile before being reused or recycled.

The NHS currently outsources its clinical waste to external providers. Usually, this means that waste is transported by high polluting diesel lorries, having major effects on the environment. In fact, over 153,000 tonnes of clinical waste is generated each year across acute and maternity hospital beds alone, generating over 108,000 tonnes of CO2. These numbers are staggering, and now more than ever, they need to be reduced.

How can we make medical waste more sustainable?

We are all probably familiar with the phrase ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’. Facilities should consider utilising reusable products which can significantly reduce consumption and general waste.

One of the more effective ways to reduce our environmental impact is to cut down on consumption. However, as mentioned previously, this isn’t always easy in the medical sector. One way to tackle this, is to ensure that facilities aren’t overstocked and that a secure waste management plan is put in place to stop this from happening.

We have another solution

So, we have covered ‘reduce’ and ‘reuse’ but what about recycling? Peacocks, in partnership with Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and CISA, have created the Curo system which aims to reduce the carbon footprint of the NHS’s current process by 100%.

Curo dramatically reduces waste costs which will save the NHS millions of pounds each year. The costs and times they save can be reinvested back into the NHS and could equate to 7,900 new nurses, 198 million patient appointments or 2.6 million ambulance deployments.

Want to speak to the Curo team about our sustainable solution to medical waste? Get in touch