This blog shares insights from CRCF’s research at Fann Hospital in Senegal, following the routes that healthcare waste takes after use and examining the everyday systems that shape its management. Looking beyond the point of disposal, the piece reflects on how single-use medical materials move through hospital infrastructures, and what these movements reveal about care, responsibility and environmental impact.

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.

The Tanzania research team recently conducted a series of stakeholder visits in Dar es Salaam, establishing collaborations with academic and environmental partners and exploring the challenges and opportunities surrounding single-use medical plastics in healthcare.

After the Single Use researchers participated in a cross-disciplinary workshop exploring waste research across the University of Edinburgh, bringing together perspectives from anthropology, archaeology, environmental humanities, and the arts.

Anne Kveim Lie presented new research on the history of the disposable glove at the History of Science Society Annual Meeting 2024.

Grassroots initiatives model socially just, care-centred ways of “discarding well,” revealing both their transformative potential and the need for broader systemic change in waste relations.