Our News

The project team members stand together for a group photo at after Bruno's presentation

01 Oct 2025

The Plastic Hospital: How Healthcare Learned to Throw Things Away

Reflections on the 2025 European Association for the History of Medicine and Health conference, where project members organised a panel and launched two new books.

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

27 Aug 2025

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

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 LEGO® build involving bridges and building connections.

14 Aug 2025

Building Shared Values

Using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, our team explored shared values - building bridges, windows, and boats - to imagine connection, openness, and bravery in reshaping the future of plastics in healthcare together.

The satirical advert for the single-use plastic speculum satirising the pink colour to please women when most doctors are men

06 Aug 2025

“Tinged with a Feminine Pink”: Adverts, Art and Greenwashing

At our Edinburgh workshop, researchers turned frustrations with single-use plastics into satirical adverts, using humour and art to expose hidden harms and greenwashing in healthcare.

A personal phone shows a photo of the researcher's dog alongside the medical equipment they are dissecting

04 Aug 2025

Photo Stories and Photo Voice: Collecting Things in After the Single Use

How can photo stories and photovoice help us rethink single-use medical devices - revealing their benefits, harms, and ethical challenges - while amplifying marginalised voices and reshaping collaboration in healthcare research?

Rows of different lightbulbs in the Energise Gallery.

24 Jul 2025

Contemporary Technology Collecting

How can contemporary collecting shape our research on single-use plastics while guiding ethical curation, museum collaboration, and future preservation?

Interior shot of the History of Surgery Museum

10 Jul 2025

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.

A group of academics sit around a table discussing pathways and barriers to collaboration.

07 Jul 2025

Collaborations: Building Ethical and Effective Interdisciplinary Partnerships

What does it take to build ethical, effective collaborations for a sustainable healthcare future? Our "Collaborations" workshop explored justice, advocacy, and co-production beyond academia.

Hands wearing gloves are taking apart medical devices.

17 Oct 2025

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.

A panel discussion with members of the project team at EAHMH 2025

28 Aug 2025

Pasts, Presents, and Futures of Plastics in Medicine

At EAHMH 2025, team members organised a panel exploring medicine’s shift to plastics, examining disposability, supply chains, waste, and sustainability while rethinking consumer culture and evolving medical care practices.

27 May 2025

Pop-up Exhibition and Reception

The project team are holding a pop-up exhibition exploring the production, circulation, and disposal of single-use medical plastics.

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.