environmental health | After Single Use

Image of Khoudia Sow with a blue vase behind her.

13 May 2025

15th Scientific Days CRCF/ANRS MIE: Rethinking medical device for reuse, renewal and resilience

At the 15th Scientific Days organised by the Regional Centre for Research and Training in HIV Care (CRCF), Khoudia Sow introduced After the Single Use to an audience of Senegalese,…

A graphic with logos for After the Single Use and SCORAI.

08 Apr 2025

SCORAI Europe Conference 2025: Discarding well? How grassroots waste initiatives advance intersectional justice

Cat Acheson shares research on grassroots waste initiatives and intersectional justice at the 2025 SCORAI Europe Conference.

Photo of Jeremy Greene with a blue background.

24 Jul 2025

Plastics and healthcare: Navigating the balance among access, health, and sustainability

At a WHO workshop, Jeremy Greene outlines the PASS-UP model—a practical framework for cutting single-use plastics in global healthcare.

A brick and glass series of buildings at School of Culture and Society at Aarhus University are the backdrop for a bustling group of students and academics in the foreground.

Activism, public health, and global plastics treaty negotiations at ‘The Anthropology of Plastics’ symposium in Aarhus

Presentations

Cat Acheson presented research on activism, public health, and global plastics treaty negotiations at ‘The Anthropology of Plastics’ symposium in Aarhus.

Unravelling the healthcare paradox: tensions in sustainable healthcare

Blog posts

Danielle Farrow reflects on CleanMed Europe 2025 explores the unresolved tensions shaping sustainable healthcare: how we balance patient outcomes, budgets, and planetary health, and who carries the burden of driving change. Read the full piece on why confronting these trade-offs is essential for reimagining healthcare’s future.

Hands wearing gloves are taking apart medical devices.

22 May 2026

Deconstructing Devices at MAE Vienna

At MAE 2025, Alice Street and Millie Marriott Webb’s lab dissected single-use medical plastics, tracing lifecycles and waste to rethink anthropological approaches to devices and environmental impact.

Medical waste sits outside a medical facility in Senegal

04 Feb 2024

Clean and Dirty: Hygiene and Medical Waste

Our team at CRCF in Senegal organised a two week workshop for research assistants in the Social Sciences.

The Thinker’s Burden sculpture by artist Benjamin Von Wong, displayed outside the Palais des Nations for the duration of the plastics treaty negotiations.

Reflections on the UN Plastics Treaty negotiation from an After the Single Use delegate

Blog posts

At the UN’s Geneva talks, 184 countries failed again to agree a plastics treaty - yet momentum grows for bold, health-centred action against plastic pollution worldwide.

A researcher teases apart the different layers of a single-use mask

Do medical masks have to be disposable?

Academic publications

Once described as "Medicine's Magic Throwaways", single-use plastics are a growing environmental problem. But what if there was a smarter, greener way? Reusable and biodegradable masks could reshape healthcare, cutting waste without compromising protection.

A researcher holds up one of several bottles containing parts of a Malaria RDT kit.

Dissecting Disposable Medical Devices: Who do Single-Use Plastics Really Affect?

Are single-use medical plastics really safer - or just shifting harm elsewhere? This workshop unpacked the hidden risks, toxic legacies, and overlooked impacts of disposable healthcare devices.

Blog posts tagged ‘environmental health’

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