Amin Haitham, Yousif Nooraldaem, Lüscher Thomas F
Mohammed Bin Khalifa Specialist Cardiac Centre, Awali, Kingdom of Bahrain.
Center for Molecular Cardiology, University of Zürich, Schlieren, Switzerland.
J Soc Cardiovasc Angiogr Interv. 2024 Nov 15;3(11):102390. doi: 10.1016/j.jscai.2024.102390. eCollection 2024 Nov.
Waste generation from health care facilities is significant. Quantifying and minimizing waste from cardiac catheterization laboratories (CCL) and cardiac operating theaters (COT) has received little attention in an effort to lessen its environmental impact. The purpose of this study was to assess the quantity of contaminated and recyclable waste resulting from invasive cardiac procedures.
To assess the potential impact of recycling, quantify the amount of waste that ends up in landfills, and determine how much contaminated material needs to be managed, we audited the amount of hazardous and nonhazardous medical waste produced from CCL and COT in our cardiac center.
Every year, our cardiac center performs 350 cardiac surgeries and 2900 interventional cases. We estimated that annually 11,000 kg of recyclable waste and 30,000 kg of contaminated waste are generated. If this is extrapolated to all the CCL and COT globally, the anticipated annual waste production from invasive cardiac procedures is 150 million kg (150,000 metric tons).
Cardiologists and cardiac surgeons must embrace sustainability as a critical need and join the effort to prevent global warming. One tiny action that each of us can take to improve the environment is to try to decrease waste while encouraging recycling.
医疗保健机构产生的废物数量可观。为减少其对环境的影响，对心脏导管实验室（CCL）和心脏手术室（COT）产生的废物进行量化并尽量减少，这方面受到的关注较少。本研究的目的是评估侵入性心脏手术产生的受污染废物和可回收废物的数量。
为评估回收利用的潜在影响、量化最终进入垃圾填埋场的废物量，并确定需要管理的受污染材料数量，我们对心脏中心CCL和COT产生的危险和非危险医疗废物量进行了审计。
每年，我们心脏中心进行350例心脏手术和2900例介入手术。我们估计，每年产生11000千克可回收废物和30000千克受污染废物。如果将此推算至全球所有的CCL和COT，侵入性心脏手术预计每年产生的废物量为1.5亿千克（150000公吨）。
心脏病学家和心脏外科医生必须将可持续性视为一项关键需求，并共同努力防止全球变暖。我们每个人都可以采取的一个微小行动来改善环境，就是在鼓励回收利用的同时尽量减少废物。
