Abstract
Health care facilities are major contributors of waste to landfills, with operating rooms estimated to assume 20–70% of this waste. With hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) on the rise, it is important to understand its environmental impact and identify areas for greening practices. Given its minimally-invasive nature, we hypothesise overall arthroscopic waste per FAI patient case to be approximately 5 kg, with minimal biohazard waste. The purpose of this study was to determine the amount of waste produced in FAI procedures and understand the environmental impact of the procedure to aid us in developing greening practices.
A single surgeon waste audit (with descriptive statistics) of five FAI hip arthroscopy procedures – categorised by: 1) normal/landfill waste; 2) recyclable cardboards and plastics; 3) biohazard waste; 4) sharp items; 5) linens; and 6) sterile wrapping – was performed in April 2015.
The surgical waste (except laundered linens) from the five FAI surgeries totalled 47.4 kg, of which 21.7 kg (45.7%) was biohazard waste, 11.7 kg (24.6%) was sterile wrap, 6.4 kg (13.5%) was normal/landfill waste, 6.4 kg (13.5%) was recyclable plastics, and 1.2 kg (2.6%) was sharp items. There was an average of 9.4 kg (excluding laundered linens) of waste produced per procedure.
Considerable waste, specifically biohazard waste, is produced in FAI procedures with an average of 9.4 kg of waste produced per procedure, including 4.3 kg of biohazard waste. In Canada (population 35.7 million), approximately 18 800 kg of waste (8600 kg of biohazard waste) is produced from an estimated 2000 FAI procedures performed every year. Additional recycling programs, reducing surgical overage, and continued adherence to proper waste segregation will be helpful in reducing waste production and its environmental burden. An emphasis on “green outcomes” is also required to demonstrate environmental responsibility and effectively manage and allocate finite resources.
