Eloïse Richards presented ‘Behind the White Coat: Cleaning and Sterilizing Hospital Textiles in the Early 20th Century’ at the international conference ‘A History of Textile Cleanliness’, exploring the labour, infrastructure, and material practices that supported hospital care before the widespread turn to disposability.

Bruno Strasser presented ‘Talking Trash — The Rise of Throwaway Medical Culture in the Age of Plastics’ at the Leuven Centre for Health Humanities, exploring how single-use medical devices transformed hospital care in the second half of the twentieth century.

A new Deconstructing Devices video explores the material composition of a single IV catheter, revealing the multiple plastic components and hidden infrastructures embedded within everyday medical devices.

A reflection on the first meeting of the Infrastructures of Reuse cluster, exploring three historical sources that reveal how sterility, labour, and disposability became embedded in modern healthcare.

Dr. Sett is the first and only biomedical waste treatment facility in Senegal. Located in Sinda, 68 km from Dakar in the Thiès region, it enables public and private medical facilities to manage all their biomedical waste in a responsible and sustainable manner. 

Dani Farrow presented research on reuse, circular economy narratives, and the infrastructures of disposability at a symposium on the anthropology of plastics at the University of Aarhus.