Health care has grown dependent on plastic. Plastic is involved in virtually every patient interaction, yet we don’t give it a second thought. Now science is starting to reveal the massive downstream health effects of plastic. It’s time that we considered our use of this ubiquitous material and whether we are causing harm to our communities by using it.

The Healthcare Plastic Recycling Council has reported that the U.S. health care system disposes of approximately 14,000 tons of waste per day, 25 percent of which is plastic, which means that we toss out some seven million pounds of plastic each day.¹ Waste audits in the emergency departments (EDs) of Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island, and Mass General Hospital in Boston found that four pounds of waste is generated per patient, per encounter, and about 60 percent of the waste is plastic.²

Health care waste contributes to approximately nine percent of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).³ Our nation’s GHG emissions account for 27 percent of the global health care emissions despite our nation’s EDs serving just four percent of the world’s population.⁴ Seventy percent of health care GHGs calculation comes from things that we purchase, use, and get rid of (versus energy for infrastructure and transportation).⁴ Medical plastic is largely to blame. To reduce our carbon footprint, we have to look at reducing our plastic footprint.

Scientists are increasingly alarmed that we have reached a crisis point with plastic — a crisis that overlaps with the climate crisis because plastic is derived from fossil fuels and petrochemicals. The plastics industry is on track to triple plastic production, surpassing coal GHG emissions, as they sell us a world of convenience where everything is wrapped in plastic.⁵ In health care, gloves are our most common single-use piece of plastic. Studies have shown that we use them unnecessarily about 60 percent of the time.⁶

We have all thought that recycling is the answer, but in the US, only about 5 percent of plastic is recycled.⁷ The rest goes into landfill, becomes litter, or is incinerated like our red-bag waste, which spews toxins into the air. Plastic doesn’t break down; it just breaks up. Your single-use plastic laceration tray will still be around in some form in hundreds or even thousands of years. Plastics have been found everywhere on Earth, and scientists have found microplastics and nanoplastics in every organ of the human body. It’s in the brain, liver, gut, reproductive organs, blood vessels, lungs, kidneys, prostate, and joints. It’s in breastmilk, the placenta, and in meconium.⁸ Human beings are now partially plastic.