The Environmental Impact of IR: A Matter of Concern?

Excerpt

In February this year, CVIR published the work of Clements et al. [1] assessing the burden of packaging and recycling of single-use products in Interventional radiology (IR). The journal wished to highlight this paper and the wider trend in sustainability in health care in general. They tested a wide range of products in their IR laboratory finding on average two items of waste packaging per product, of which 76% of the waste was potentially recyclable. The potential for high numbers of short cases in a day and large numbers of single-use consumables means that an IR department can produce a high volume of waste. Although this is not the first study looking at recycling and the environmental impact of IR, there are very few studies in the literature. …