If the global health care sector were its own country, it would be the fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet. The health care sector generates 4.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions – more than double the emissions generated by the entire airline industry.
Pollution from hospitals, caused largely by wasteful hospital supply chains and reliance on disposable medical products, adversely impacts human health, resulting in hundreds of thousands of years of life lost annually, due to the impact of incineration and emissions from hospitals, according to recently published data by Professor Andrea MacNeill from the University of British Columbia, in the Journal Health Affairs.
Action now is critically important because hospitals pollute so much that they make us sick and are shortening life in much of the world, according to new data. As the European Union re-evaluates existing regulations with an eye toward incentivizing the Circular Economy, it should look to the 2017 Medical Device Regulation (MDR) as a way to cut senseless medical waste. The EU MDR was adopted 5 April 2017 and the date of full application is 26 May 2021. . .
Read the full article by AMDR’s Daniel Vukelich by visiting BrusslesTimes.com.
