By July of 2020, 2.3 billion items of singleuse PPE had been distributed to health and social care services in England, the same number consumed in the whole of 2019.1 Global shortages in the face of the surge in demand following the COVID-19 pandemic saw the disposable PPE industry rocket in value from $800m to $166bn as governments raced to secure enough resources.2 There were several unfortunate environmental consequences to this change in the market. First was the amount of PPE that had to be sourced from as far afield as Turkey, China and Korea. Such a long supply chain was not only vulnerable to disruption, it brought with it soaring CO2 emissions from air freight and shipping. In some cases, this led to the inevitable situation of PPE reaching the UK market and being rejected as sub-standard, much to the frustration of the policy-makers responsible for awarding the contract.3
All NHS Trusts are striving to meet the 2042 deadline for
