Environmental sustainability in hospitals: an exploration within anaesthetic and intensive care settings

Abstract

Hospitals are resource intensive with detrimental environmental effects. This thesis explored hospital environmental resource use and resultant waste production in the operating room and intensive care unit. It examined safely reducing the use of equipment; compared reusable versus single use items and their resultant life cycles of carbon, water etc; and explored the effects of recycling. Steam sterilisation's large carbon and water footprint and how staff use sterilisers were quantified. Several examples of environmental and financial savings were found.