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When Jodi Sherman first started working in hospitals, she was struck by the amount of plastic used on a daily basis. She wondered how single-use plastics could be consistent with the Hippocratic oath鈥檚 first principle to 鈥渄o no harm.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 clear that these materials come from somewhere and they go somewhere and they must be causing harm,鈥� says , an anesthesiologist at Yale New Haven Hospital and founding director of the Program on Healthcare Environmental Sustainability at the Yale Center for Climate Change and Health.

But not all of her colleagues and patients see it that way, since plastic is an embedded feature of patient care. According to the , 20鈥�25% of all hospital waste in the United States is plastic鈥攁mounting to more than 1 million tons annually. 

This wasn鈥檛 always the case鈥� in hospitals dates back less than 100 years. But during the postwar plastic boom of the 1940s, medical professionals seized on its utility. 

鈥淭he temptation for mass one-use disposal was irresistible,鈥� says Robert Friedel, professor emeritus of history at the University of Maryland. 

That temptation was only amplified by plastic鈥檚 convenience, relatively low cost, and efficacy in certain situations, adds Friedel. Rigid plastics revolutionized products like the hypodermic syringe鈥斺�攂y making it cheaper to produce at scale.

Even the plastic straw鈥攁 source of modern consternation鈥攈as roots in medicine. In 1937, Joseph Friedman invented what we now know as the , though his model was made from paper. His , after nurses recognized its utility for patients with limited mobility.

鈥淭he medical community got away with it for a very long time, but the sheer volume of medical waste is beginning to catch up with them,鈥� Friedel says. 

Many medical facilities across the U.S. have some kind of recycling program, but , factory closures, and have introduced hurdles to seamless recycling.

鈥淭he recycling market for certain plastics in health care [is] very troublesome right now,鈥� says Janet Howard, member engagement director with Practice Greenhealth, a nonprofit that, among other health care sustainability efforts, partners with medical providers to reduce waste. 鈥淲e鈥檇 rather look for opportunities to go back to reuse.鈥� 

But getting medical professionals and patients to be comfortable with reused plastic that鈥檚 been exposed to a world of pathogens鈥攅specially in the middle of a global pandemic鈥攃an be tough. It involves getting over what Howard calls the 鈥渋ck鈥� factor of health care and undoing decades-old cultural beliefs in the sanitary nature of single-use plastics. 

Certain items, like small IV tubing and IV catheters, would be dangerous to reuse, Sherman says. But many other items can be. The World Health Organization reports that . And evidence shows that many items could see a second life through Single-Use Device Reprocessing, though the . 

The process allows for the disinfection, cleaning, and remanufacturing of certain items with plastic parts like pulse oximeter sensors and tourniquets. 

鈥淭he 鈥榮ingle-use disposable鈥� label is not a regular label,鈥� explains Sherman. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a manufacturer-invented label. 鈥� Just because something is labeled 鈥榮ingle-use disposable鈥� does not mean it can鈥檛 be reused.鈥�

In other cases, the solution may be to revert to rigid, reusable plastics and glass containers, rather than the flimsy throwaways that replaced them. 

Blue wrap is a conspicuous contributor to plastic waste in operating rooms. The #5, bright blue polypropylene plastic is used to sterile-wrap surgical equipment. The total amount of blue wrap waste is astonishing: One Canadian found that just one type of surgery鈥攖otal knee arthroplasty鈥攇enerated more than 167,000 pounds of blue wrap waste from 2008 to 2009 in Canada. 

But suggests that blue wrap can often be easily replaced with reusable hard cases that don鈥檛 need to be tossed after just one use. And they can save hospitals money along the way.

Hospital sharps containers offer another simple opportunity for reuse. Instead of chucking the whole container鈥攗sed to safely dispose of needles and other sharp biohazardous waste鈥攔eusable containers can be taken to a processing facility to be emptied and disinfected.

Howard says the pandemic has highlighted how building out local supply chains, rather than banking on international manufacturers, can strengthen reuse and recycling projects.

鈥淥ur work [at Greenhealth] is really connected to community resilience,鈥� Howard says. 鈥淭he good news is that working with local businesses and putting down your roots in your community, investing in the local businesses, prepares you for crisis. And that could be extreme weather events, or it could be a pandemic. Whatever it may be.鈥�