At the Central Sterilising Club (CSC) Autumn study day, on the 10th October 2022, in Manchester, sustainability was high on the agenda. The event included some thought-provoking discussions on how the environmental impact of decontamination and endoscopy departments could be minimised. Louise Frampton reports.
Speaking at the CSC Autumn study day, Professor Bu’Hussain Hayee, professor of gastroenterology at King’s College London (KCL), gave a call to action to join the ‘movement for sustainable practice’. He explained that endoscopy is the third highest generator of waste in healthcare.1,2 There are a number of reasons for this: endoscopy involves a high throughput of cases; it has multiple nonrenewable waste streams; it requires resourceheavy decontamination processes; and it involves numerous hospital visits for patients and relatives.
Each endoscopy generates 2.1kg of disposable waste (46L volume)2 and most of this waste goes to landfill (64%). Biohazardous waste accounts for around 28%, while only 9% of waste is recycled. There is significant room for improvement, therefore. The WHO is calling for action and states that the majority of healthcare waste should be recycled. But to support this, more data is required.
“There are huge efforts in the fields of gastroenterology and endoscopy in the past few years, so data will support our practice in the future,” Prof. Hayee commented.
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