Dr Oliver Waters and clinical nurse Carla Hazelgrave at St John of God Murdoch Hospital show the difference between the old histopathology pots that were being used and the new smaller ones.
An endoscopy team at a Perth hospital has made a small change to cut its plastic waste by 25 kilograms and its use of toxic chemicals by 700 litres a year.
Plastic waste makes up about a third of the general waste produced by hospitals in Australia, and due to infection prevention concerns and complex material combinations, much of it is incinerated.
This includes the histopathology pots used for holding samples taken during endoscopy procedures.
St John of God Hospital Murdoch endoscopy staff have come up with a simple change that can help address unnecessary waste. Head of Gastroenterology and Endoscopy Dr Oliver Waters said most samples during these procedures were just a few millimetres.
“It makes no sense having a 2mm specimen floating in a 70ml pot, it’s the equivalent of keeping and transporting a human sized sample in an Olympic swimming pool sized pot,,” he said.
Yet hospitals have traditionally used 70ml pots.
“That’s what the labs have always done and is what is available,” he said.
“Samples are separated into different pots according to patient procedure and anatomical location of the tissue sampled. It is common that at the end of a list between 10 and 30 individual pots are used.”
Dr Waters and Clinical Nurse Carla Hazelgrave led the team’s move to smaller 25mL pots.
The team use around 41,000 pots each year and transitioning to smaller pots has helped save an estimated 26 kilograms of plastic and over 700 litres of formalin from being incinerated each year, just at Murdoch.
“These pots are used in huge numbers – and every single one eventually gets incinerated,” said Dr Waters.
“By reducing their size, we’re cutting down on waste, lowering our exposure to formalin, and proving that sustainability and high-quality care can go hand in hand.”
The change required both the endoscopy nurses and the pathology labs to slightly alter their work flows to accommodate the smaller pots which are slightly harder to label and more prone to being knocked over on a flat surface.
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But Dr Waters said nurses and doctors had adapted well to using the smaller pots. The smaller pots have been adopted by all pathology providers who supply to Murdoch since mid-February.
“It’s great to see everyone pulling together to make a difference because there is so much work to be done in the space of environmental sustainability,” he said.
“I’m hoping this is just the start of a number of initiatives in endoscopy that we can implement to make a difference – including reusable scope buttons and reducing sterile bottled water usage.”
The benefits extend beyond Murdoch, with interest in the histopathology pot initiative spreading to other hospitals including Peel and Midland.
“The hope is that now one department is using these pots it can expand to other departments including dermatology, which also take a lot of biopsies, so in time this becomes an industry standard,” Dr Waters said.
“It has been great to make this change in the private system and our next goal is to try and get the wholesale change across the public sector.
“I encourage all clinicians and caregivers to look around their work environments and consider what changes we could make to reduce waste and improve care,” he said.
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