The Environmental Footprint of Neurosurgery Operations: An Assessment of Waste Streams and the Carbon Footprint

Sayed Samed Talibi, Teresa Scott and Rahim A. Hussain
Additional contact information
Sayed Samed Talibi: Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire, Coventry CV2 2DX, UK
Teresa Scott: Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire, Coventry CV2 2DX, UK
Rahim A. Hussain: Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire, Coventry CV2 2DX, UK

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 10, 1-7

Abstract: Healthcare in England generates 24.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO 2 e), equating to approximately 4% of the total national output of greenhouse gases (GHG), and of this, 10% is from the manufacturing of medical equipment. Operating theatres are a major contributor of biomedical waste, especially consumables, and are three-to-six times more energy intensive than the rest of the hospital. This study seeks to quantify and evaluate the carbon cost, or footprint, of neurosurgery at a single institution in England. A single neurosurgical operation generates, on average, 8.91 kg of waste per case, equivalent to 24.5 CO 2 e kg per case, mostly from single-use equipment. Per annum, 1300 neurosurgical operative cases are performed with total waste generation of 11,584.4 kg/year and a carbon footprint of 31,859 (kg) CO 2 e. The challenge of achieving net zero GHG presents an opportunity to catalyse innovation and sustainability in neurosurgery, from how care is delivered, through to equipment use and surgical methodologies. This should improve the quality of healthcare provision to patients and yield potential cost savings.

Keywords: biomedical waste management; carbon footprint; environmental sustainability; hospital ecomanagement; neurosurgery; surgery sustainability; surgical system improvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5995/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5995/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:5995-:d:815930

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().