Outputs

At the 2025 European Association for the History of Medicine and Health conference, Jeremy Greene examined how the 1960s disposable revolution created vast medical waste, raising environmental and health concerns.

At the 2025 European Association for the History of Medicine and Health conference, Bruno J. Strasser examined how disposable medical masks replaced reusable ones, with significant environmental impacts.

At the 2025 European Association for the History of Medicine and Health conference, Eloïse Richard examined how 20th-century hospital sterilisation changes reshaped labour and hospital infrastructures.

At the 2025 European Association for the History of Medicine and Health conference, Anne Kveim Lie examined the shift from in-house sterilisation labour to hazardous factory work.

At EAHMH 2025, Anne Kveim Lie revealed how disposability shifted the labour of sterilisation to hazardous factory work, embedding single-use plastics in global supply chains with lasting social and environmental costs.

At the Medical Anthropology Europe Conference 2025, Alice Street questioned how we might theorise hospitals as more-than-biomedical places and highlighted the environmental damage hospitals cause. 

Akhilesh Bonthu and Nanda Kishore Kannuri presented research on the anthropology of plastics and medical waste at a national seminar exploring anthropology’s role in addressing contemporary global challenges.

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.