Eliminate the Middle Man
In 2022, C-Level executives in healthcare generally list costs [price, profits, and transparency] as their number one area of focus.[1] Finding impactful ways to cut costs without disrupting operations and negatively impacting patient care can be a difficult task to take on.
According to Michael Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, “Three classes of factors affect what an organization can and cannot do: its resources, its processes, and its values.”
Since the pandemic, medical waste has increased tremendously, leaving landfills struggling to find space, plastic ending up in the ocean, incinerators working at total capacity, hospitals bleeding money, and executives scratching their heads about what to do next.
A seemingly effective way for facilities to control their Scope 1 emissions and energy consumption has been to eliminate medical waste treatment from their operations and outsource this to third-party companies. Here’s a quick refresher on Scope 1, 2[2], & 3[3] emissions:
1. Scope 1 – direct greenhouse gas emissions that occur from sources that are controlled or owned by an organization (fuel combustion in vehicles, furnaces, etc.).
2. Scope 2 – Indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the purchase of energy (electricity, heat, cooling, etc.).
3. Scope 3 – emissions that are a result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organization, but that the organization indirectly impacts in its value chain.
Immediately removing medical waste emissions from the Scope 1 category and placing them into Scope 3. As your organization works to eliminate Scope 1 & 2, you’ll eventually return to where you started, having spent an exceptional amount of money.
While subcontracting medical waste treatment seems like a good solution because it doesn’t directly impact an organization’s resources, it presents another account payable on the balance sheet, eventually affecting resources. That doesn’t sound like cost-cutting to us.
Clean Waste Systems helps healthcare organizations eliminate outsourced medical waste treatment operations. From an environmental standpoint, shipping waste to an auxiliary location is energy inefficient, emission producing, and leaves a significant margin of error for the safe disposal of hazardous materials. Additionally, the fact that incineration is still the primary methodology of sterilization and volume reduction for many of these companies exhibits an outdated mindset within the healthcare community.
From a financial standpoint, our Ozone Medical Waste Treatment system is an investment. Not just an investment in state-of-the-art technology, but an investment in a mindset that prioritizes the environment and sustainable business operations for years to come. An investment that generates a significant ROI within a couple of years, removes a hefty expense from the account sheet, produces zero emissions, and reduces landfill trips through volume reduction. An investment that completely sterilizes and shreds waste [no more worry about those pesky sharps!], allowing workers/transporters peace of mind and bringing medical waste disposal under your control.
Our technology reduces the volume of medical waste by 80-90%, which means fewer trips to the landfill. Taking medical waste to a processing plant and shipping it to landfills creates significant carbon emissions. Accepting this method as a viable solution for hospitals and our environment is illogical.
Additionally, concerning resources, our on-site treatment option uses significantly less energy and consumes less water per treatment, generating exponential savings over time. Autoclaves and microwave operations require large amounts of energy to bring their water to the temperature required to effectively sterilize the medical waste. Our system is an on-demand process that only uses a small amount of electricity and water from the moment the button is pressed.
Sustainable healthcare requires long-term strategizing and operational optimization that can scale with the organization. Ozone Medical Waste gives organizations more resources and better processes while shifting values to become more people and planet centric. Ozone Medical Waste Treatment gives the power back to the C-Suite to eliminate the middle man, make a sound business investment, and eventually provide more working capital to improve the patient/worker care experience.
Sharps, Sharps, Sharps!
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that each year 385,000 needlesticks and other sharps-related injuries are sustained by hospital-based healthcare personnel. Similar injuries occur in other healthcare settings, such as nursing homes, clinics, emergency care services, and private homes.”[1]
No matter the healthcare setting, the costs associated with sharps injuries can vary widely and amount quickly. The expenses begin with the initial follow-up inspection and potential treatment for the injured healthcare worker. They can expand into costs that are more difficult to quantify, such as emotional damage, fear, and worry of exposure to hazardous materials.
Better on-site medical waste disposal should be significantly considered when analyzing current operations. For operations managers, sharps pose an existing threat to staff and the bottom line. The Ozone Medical Waste Treatment System (OMW) tackles both problems simultaneously through ease of operation and universal medical waste treatment.
The OMW system incorporates an industrial-strength shredder that renders all types of medical waste unrecognizable and sterilizes the remaining waste remnants with a highly effective and proprietary ozone formula—eliminating the risk of sticks and subsequent infection for workers.
Our operation is virtually hands-off for workers, providing intangible benefits by instilling confidence in staff, removing the fear of infection, and abolishing the threat of being painfully stuck.
Cut costs, improve worker safety, and control every aspect of your medical waste disposal with the Ozone Medical Waste Treatment System.
Time to Clear the Air
These days, indoor air quality is one of the most pertinent talking points within the healthcare sector. In the wake of Covid-19, infection preventionists, companies, and engineering firms are working on improving the indoor air staff and patients breath. At the same time, why haven’t we considered the air waste workers breathe? Are they not staff? Outsourced or not, if you genuinely care about the health of others, you’ll want to broaden the lens through which you examine indoor air quality in relation to medical waste treatment.
“Microplastics (MPs) pollution has become a universal challenge due to the overexploitation of plastic products and unsystematic dumping of plastic waste. Initial studies on MPs and their implications had been confined to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, but recent research has also focused on MPs in the air. Their impacts on urban air quality and atmospheric transport to pristine habitats have emerged to be a serious concern. However, the extent and the significance of impacts of airborne particulate matter (PM) MPs on human health are not clearly understood.”[1]
Imagine being on the frontlines of operating an incinerator. As the plastics, which are inherent in medical waste, materials break down form the high heat, it is virtually impossible to prevent MPs, dioxins, furans, and more from entering the workers’ surroundings. Additionally, neighboring communities near the incineration plants are at risk of exposure to these same fumes.
“Concern is raised about the risk of releasing dangerous gases, such as dioxins and furans, into the atmosphere in the process of plastic disposal through incineration in ineffective and insufficiently maintained recycling installations or by burning landfills containing PPE. The uncontrolled burning of waste which contains plastic, including PPE, may contribute to higher emissions of greenhouse gases to the environment, causing a negative impact on global warming, which is why it is so important to push for broad education aiming to raise social awareness of the impact of plastic on the environment and health in the context of environmental and public health.”[2]
The same applies to autoclaving as a means of treatment. The medical waste runs through machines repetitively in reusable containers. As the operations go about their business, waste is actively melting into the lining of these containers. When removing these bins from the devices, fumes emit from the heated waste that remains in and on the containers, which are susceptible to being inhaled by workers.
Our Ozone Medical Waste Treatment system provides so many benefits. One of the primary benefits is that our technology produces zero emissions. As plastics enter our device, the industrial shredder renders the waste unrecognizable, and the waste looks like confetti. The medical waste receives a non-heat ozone sterilization spray and reverts the ozone back to oxygen at the end of the process.
Ozone sterilization is cost-efficient, highly effective, and safer for operators to work around than all heat-based treatment systems.
Let’s prioritize our waste workers, surrounding communities, and clear the air.
#medicalwaste #sustainablehealthcare #systemchange #technology
For more information click here: https://cleanwastesystems.com/
—————————————————————————————————————
Eliminate the Middle Man References
[1] https://hceg.org/wp-content/uploads/2022-HCEG-Top-10-Detailed-Descriptions.pdf
[2] Scope 1 and Scope 2 Inventory Guidance. (2021, September 29). US EPA. https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/scope-1-and-scope-2-inventory-guidance
[3] Scope 3 Inventory Guidance. (2022, May 12). US EPA. https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/scope-3-inventory-guidance
Sharps, Sharps, Sharps! References
[1]https://www.cdc.gov/sharpssafety/resources.html#:~:text=The%20Centers%20for%20Disease%20Control,care%20services%2C%20and%20private%20homes.
Time to Clear the Air References
[1] Sridharan, S., Kumar, M., Singh, L., Bolan, N. S., & Saha, M. (2021). Microplastics as an emerging source of particulate air pollution: A critical review. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 418, 126245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.126245
[2] Chmielewski, J., Żeber-Dzikowska, I., Dziechciaż, M., Łuszczki, J., Chmielewski, J., Gworek, B., Czarny-Działak, M., & Wojciechowska, M. (2022). Microplastic in the environment. The role of education in raising social awareness of the handling of plastic waste. Journal of Elementology, 1/2022. https://doi.org/10.5601/jelem.2021.26.4.2215