To think single-use PPE is terrible for the environment

[Lycidas]

Apparently 55,000 items of PPE will only last eight hours in the UK...with this situation due to continue for many months at least. Is there really no alternative that’s not as wasteful and environmentally damaging?

FFS

Enforced nakedness might also solve the obesity crisis! @nevergooogle I think you've cracked it!

OP - some viruses/prions can survive hundreds of degrees in heat. Some things really do just need to be disposable. Plus you take your gloves and mask off between every patient. That would create so much laundry it would be counterproductive.

Have you ever been in hospital and seen the normal waste even the most simple of procedures produce?

I have had chemo and was shocked at how much waste came from each of my treatments! Obviously you can't reuse anything and so much has to be packaged separately etc etc, it's absolutely tonnes of stuff! And it all just gets chucked/incinerated.

The PPE from treating Covid probably won't really touch the sides in the grand scheme of things.

Is this a reverse?

I have been wondering about this too so am really grateful to the knowledgable posters who have provided explanations. It's a perfectly reasonable question.

Have you got an alternative at all OP - or just pointing out the obvious? What is your suggestion?

I agree with OP. If ordinary soap destroys the virus cell wall (which is why everyone is washing their hands so frequently), why can't PPE be washed in soapy water, drip dried and re-used?

I'm with OP on this. It's not that there are great alternatives but why we haven't done more to fund and research alternatives. I suspect the business model is lucrative in the way fast fashion is. Years ago, when you had Sunday best, etc they were well-made clothes as they may have had to last you a lifetime. How many Dads had one suit for weddings, funerals, christenings, etc? Now, the money is in disposable. Perhaps the will from the industry isn't there to make something environmentally friendly.

People are dying of a disease that we have no way of fighting and it's sweeping across the world.

If any equipment being used to protect the people at the forefront of treating people who have this disease has a less than ideal impact on the environment, I'm afraid, as far as I'm concerned the environment will have to take its chances.

PotholeParadise I did, when I pointed out the inconsistency of her environmental position.

Obviously not now in the midst of the crisis, but there are research labs all over the world who know about materials and how they work.

The energy needed to fended reuseable PPE safe is massive, far more than producing single use PPE that is then incinerated and usually produces a heat source.

www.conserve-energy-future.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-incineration.php

As posted, the close weave materials are being diverted from, for instance, making air bags. Switzerland spends more on p.p.e. sets, to a higher standard, but re-uses.

It would be interesting to know if the Swiss style gear is more comfortable for the staff, who find problems with the kits currently used in u.k.

@20mum Yes. And whether the trusts would pay.

It isn't necessarily cheap to chuck. The figures would need to be looked at. Something made the Swiss go for re-usable p.p.e.

I think you're getting a massively unfair roasting on here OP. You just have to look at people on this thread who actually work in the NHS like RedPurpleGreen and JADS who are thinking along the same lines and the shift to plastic has been recent, so it's evidently not "plastic or nothing".

Plastic appears to be cheap because it doesn't include in the cost the huge, massive negative effects to the environment. If the cost of those plastic gowns and shields and single use throwaway anything were actually included, then I bet you anything that the cost of running that autoclave (especially if powered by renewable energy!!) would start to look more competitive.

The last time I had a Mirena fitted, the doctor used a plastic speculum that came out of a packet, and she threw it away afterwards. She saw that I was a little shocked, as 5 years before at the same surgery it had been metal and sterilised. She said the plastic ones were cheaper so they switched. I bet a full lifecycle analysis would have shown the metal ones were still cheaper and a smaller carbon footprint, but who at the NHS has the money to do that kind of study.

It's about safety. Particularly in relation to blood borne diseases. Single patient use is the safest.

Autoclaves, particularly in GP surgeries & dental practices, cannot reliably kill off all of the organisms.

When my dd1 was being trained in ppe use she said that someone somewhere would be making a fortune out of it. Maybe the lesson that will come out of it is that reusable items will be developed or redeveloped.
But not just now!
Also we seemed to do well at home cutting back on single use plastics, but lack of refills, unpackaged fruit, using more soap is undoing that.

I think OP is getting unfairly jumped on here. She isn't saying we should reuse PPE that's unsafe, she's asking if some clever scientists could create PPE that can be sterilised and safely reused. At no point has she suggested that she thinks HCPs should reuse the existing stuff designed for single use, or said it is ok that people are dying!
She's just pointed out that if someone could come up with a reusable safe version it would be environmentally better, and it would lessen/solve the problem of the PPE shortage not just for us but for other countries who can't get as much either.
Perfectly reasonable question whether anyone knows if it can be done.

Is this all you have to worry about?

Deaths are up, domestic violence is up, people are losing their jobs, life is on hold. Old people are dropping like flies in Care Homes. Doctors and Nurses and dying as they try to care for the sick.

But you raise the environmental point of disposable gowns. Grow up.

A lot of instruments/items which used to be washable/sterilisable/multiple use have bern replaces with single use paper/plastic as it has been found that small amounts of debris cannot be removed by cleaning/ultrasonic so cannot be reliably sterilised. Also prions are incredibly resistant to normal medical sterilisation procedures. When CJD was in the headlines most things became single use for this reason. The amount of medical waste produced is huge anyway. Those NHS staff working with COVID patients now would otherwise still be wearing the same amount of disposable PPE every day, just a different type.

I'm very much an environmentalist and I think the environmental impact has to come second. Single use equipment is used because of contamination issues with reusable. I suspect it will all be being incinerated.

I think actually the fact that plastics are so important to so much medical equipment is another reason we need to use less of it elsewhere.

Back off @Malvinaa81 We all know what's happening. OP raised an relevant question. I 've just spoken gt my niece who is a nurse and is worried about PPE.

IIRC

In the old days everything was metal and fabric and reusable
and was cleaned in autoclaves / high temperature wash between uses
BUT
on a cradle to grave analysis
it is better for the planet to make ultra lightweight single use items
that are incinerated on site in
combined heat and power plants
which most big hospitals have

SO actually single use PPE is better
because there is zero risk of cross contamination
and lower energy use

The OP is correct. People working in cleans rooms in the semiconductor and other industries where workspaces need to be super clean use re-usable PPE and are shocked at the level of single use PPE in the NHS. No wonder they’re running out when they use new PPE for every patient and then bin it.

But the issue is about efficient and effective use of resources. While single use might have a lower energy cost than re-usable (although I doubt it when you look at the energy cost of shipping it all from China), it becomes unsustainable when availability is constrained eg when every hospital in the world is trying to get hold of it.