Students from around the world calculated their class mean and standard deviations for their footprints and posted them on our world map.
Do you see differences across the globe? If so, why do you think those differences exist?
Did you use the calculator to try to reduce your footprint down to the average from a citizen of another country? What changes would you have to make to lower your footprint in this way? Are you going to try and take some of these actions in your daily life?
Student Footprints >
Needle-Free Injectors as a Sustainable Alternative to Syringes
I have always wondered about medical supplies and their detriment to the environment. These supplies include needles, cloths, and scalpels which are not always disposed of properly. Although we can sterilize some of these items and reuse them, the reuse in these items may have serious consequences, especially if they are not sterilized properly. According to Melis N. Anahtar's article, "Needle-Free Injectors as a Sustainable Alternative to Syringes," unclean medical syringes are responsible for approximately 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year. She offers a more sustainable way of administering drugs called Needle-free injectors or NFIs which perform the same tasks as a syringe but without the needle. It takes a liquid which flows through a nozzle orifice which creates a high-velocity liquid jet that punctures the skin and delivers the drug below the skin to fat or muscle.
I think that this is a step towards making methods in the medical field more sustainable. What are your thoughts on this?
Wow this is really interesting! I've never thought about the big environmental impact the medical field must play. It is a hard problem they face considering they must use sterile and new supplies to ensure the patient is treated right, but at the same time try to reuse supplies so that they do not produce so much waste. Needle free syringes definitely sound like a big step to becoming more sustainable, and it would be great if this could become of wide spread use. I think hospitals should be forced to change their way of disinfecting waste if it is not sustainable. Because a lot of the waste that hospitals produce has to be disinfected before put into a landfill, they often incinerate it, which uses a lot of energy, and produces terrible fumes. There are other ways to disinfect such as autoclaving or certain chemical treatments can be more eco-friendly as said in this article about ways hospitals can start going green: http://www.healthcarebusinesstech.com/go ing-green-hospital/
I'm definitely much more curious about how hospitals plan on becoming more sustainable thanks to your great post!
Tiffany, I found your response very interesting. I never really considered the issues of sustainability in the medical field. Part of the Hippocratic Oath for doctors is to "first, do no harm". I think that idea should go towards not only the patients, but also the environment. I always thought that metal needles were the only way of injecting patients, so I was really surprised to hear about the alternative method of needle-free, high speed injections. I also think that one of healthcare's top priorities is finding a balance between keeping the public healthy and safe and caring for the environment. As long as people have made sure that they new, alternative health care practices are totally safe, I say go for it. Another way healthcare can become more sustainable is buying make hospitals more environmentally friendly. There are hospitals everywhere, so just making minor changes to them can have a huge impact on the environment, such as using mercury free devices and switching to solar panelling. (https://www.unthsc.edu/operations/wp-co … nd_Sus.pdf)