Financial and environmental costs of reusable and single-use anaesthetic equipment
F. McGain, D. Story, T. Lim, and S. McAlister.
British Journal of Anaesthesia, 118 (6): 862–9 (2017).
We estimated all financial and environmental costs for a Melbourne hospital to switch from single-use to reusable airway equipment (face masks, circuits, Proseal laryngeal masks, standard and video-laryngoscope blades). The financial costs for the reusable equipment included all labour costs for preparing such items for reuse. Reusable standard direct laryngoscope blades were washed and sterilised. Reusable video-laryngoscope blades (‘C-Mac’ in this study) are sterilised with the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) steriliser due to less resilience of the video component to steam sterilisation. We were particularly interested in the environmental costs of CO2 emissions (carbon footprint) and water use. It was self-evident that reusable equipment created less physical waste than single use equipment.
Key Findings of the paper:
1. Using reusable in lieu of disposable anaesthetic airway equipment saved approximately $5,000 per annum per operating theatre.
2. Most of the financial savings were from using reusable face masks and reusable video-laryngoscope blades.
3. In all cases water consumption is greater when one uses reusable equipment than single use (as expected this is primarily due to washing of the reusable equipment).
4. In Victoria, the CO2 emissions for using reusable anaesthetic equipment were approximately 10% more than for single use equipment. This is because Victoria is primarily reliant upon brown coal (high CO2 emissions) for electricity. In both cases, there were approximately 1 tonne of CO2 emissions per annum per operating theatre, equivalent to driving a standard car approximately 5,000 km.
5. In Tasmania, New Zealand, Europe and elsewhere where a greater share of renewable electricity is generated, lower CO2 emissions are very much in favour of reusable equipment, unlike in most of Australia currently. Converting to reusable airway equipment with these ‘renewable’ electricity mixes would reduce car travel by greater than 3,500km per annum per operating theatre.
6. Importantly, due to state based electricity targets there is a rapid shift occurring in Australia’s electricity mix towards renewable electricity generation, which is expected to reduce the CO2 emissions of reusable airway equipment to less than half that of single use within the next decade.
7. That is: Reusable airway equipment saves money, and
Greater renewables= better reusables…