Blog posts tagged ‘sustainability’

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After the Single Use infinity logo symbol on purple background.

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.
Alice Street and Millie Marriott Webb amongst an array of POCTs at the pop-up lab.
07 Nov 2025

Deconstructing Devices at POCT for Scot

Every year at POCT for Scot, global and local Point of Care Test suppliers alike assemble to discuss industry advances and promote their technologies to the delegation of researchers, healthcare and laboratory professionals.

Large pile of scissors on chrome table.

Syringes, packaging and masks: can we do without disposable plastic equipment in hospitals?

Media items

Can hospitals reduce their dependence on disposable plastics? Bruno Strasser contributes to a discussion on the history, risks, and trade-offs behind medical throwaway culture.
Poster for the Levi Symposium.
12 Nov 2024

Levi Symposium: The value(s) of disposability in health care

At the Levi Symposium, scholars and practitioners explored whether healthcare must trade safety, efficacy, or efficiency for sustainability—or if durable, low-carbon alternatives can achieve all.
A waste disposal worker holds up two handfuls of plastic waste that cannot be recycled

Plastics and human health: what’s at stake in the global treaty talks in Geneva

Media items

Global talks in Geneva could decide whether a plastics treaty protects human health - or bows to industry pressure. The outcome may shape pollution, toxic exposure, and public safety for generations.
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. 
Medical implement discarded on road

Plastics in health care: rethinking medical device innovation, use, and disposal for sustainability

Academic publications

The virtues of medical plastics have a dark side: where do discarded devices go? Can we redesign them to reduce, reuse, or recycle our way towards a more sustainable economy?
Decorative image

A pragmatic approach to streamlining single-use plastics in health care

Academic publications

The PASS-UP framework offers a practical, evidence-based approach to reduce single-use plastics in health care, promoting sustainability without compromising safety, effectiveness, or affordability through collaboration, redesign, and targeted reduction.
A series of displays line the muted white walls of the History of Surgery Museum. A oil painting with a thick frame is on the end wall.

Exploring Surgeons’ Hall Museums, Edinburgh

At our Edinburgh workshop, a visit to Surgeons’ Hall Museums revealed how medical materials evolved, highlighting overlooked histories of disposability and raising urgent questions about plastics in healthcare’s future.
Professor Anne Kveim Lie talking in an academic setting with three figures in the background.
01 Jun 2025

Norwegian health publication ‘Dagens Medisin’ feature After the Single Use

Anne Kveim Lie spoke to Norwegian health publication ‘Dagens Medisin’ about disposable medical equipment, healthcare waste, and the growing need for systemic change.
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