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Building resilience: Evaluating the case for reusable medical protective clothing


A blog post by Andreea Zotinca, Circular Healthcare Project Officer – HCWH Europe
Medical protective clothing is essential not only to protect medical professionals from pathogens, but also to protect patients from possible contamination. Surgical masks, respirators, gowns, aprons, gloves, and visors have become indispensable in the fight against the COVID-19 virus, yet this increase in consumption and disposal of single-use products is negatively impacting our environment and health.

During the pandemic, the UK healthcare sector alone has seen demand for facemasks grow by 4,700% - up to 85-90 million per month. Similarly, the consumption of single-use aprons and gloves has grown 550% and 200% respectively. This trend is not unique to the UK and the skyrocketing growth of disposable medical protective clothing is increasingly problematic.
[Image: UK Department of Health & Social Care (September 2020) Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Strategy - Stabilise and build resilience]

The impact of disposable medical protective clothing


The excessive production of disposable medical protective clothing undermines our health and climate goals – the majority are made from plastic, which continues our reliance on fossil fuels, especially at the current scales of production. After a short, single-use life, disposable medical protective clothing also continues to harm the environment and our health through disposal:
  • Incineration - generates further carbon emissions, as well as toxic gases such as dioxins or furans, and toxic
  • Landfill – products can persist for hundreds of years, potentially leaching toxic chemicals to soil and water
Transitioning to reusable medical protective clothing provides many opportunities but there are often barriers that must be considered…
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