Sustainability Matters

Gloving vendors should meet certain environmental criteria — and be aiming to go even further.

If you’re serious about sustainability in the OR, then you’d better be focused on your glove purchasing practices.

There are plenty of reasons to single out this common item, according to Tracey Easthope, MPH, senior strategist at Health Care Without Harm, who served as the lead creator of Practice Greenhealth’s “Guidance for Sustainable Glove Purchasing.” “Gloves have major environmental imp because they’re one of the highest-volume products in health care, and they have significant resource and green house gas (GHS)-use associated with them,” says Ms. Easthope. “They also generate large amounts of waste, contain chemicals of concern and have a problematic supply chain.”

Part of the equation

Granted, most facility leaders are not only aware of the impact surgery has on the environment, but they also genuinely want to do their part to mitigate the negative effects of climate change within their control. That said, are busy administrators and directors really supposed to purchase an inferior product just because of a reduced carbon, social and chemical footprint?

Not at all, says Ms. Easthope. “Sustainability criteria are criteria in addition to all the critical functionality, safety and efficacy requirements you demand of your gloving vendors,” she says, adding that responding to requests about green gloving requirements are fast becoming the industry norm. “We can no longer separate sustainability from population health, and therefore patient health,” she says. “Climate change, chemical contamination, increasing pandemics and so many other sustainability issues are driving more patients to the doors of health care, and challenging the resilience of the healthcare sector. Sustainability needs to be one of the most important community conditions attended to by the health sector.”

Start here

Of course, sustainability can only become one of these conditions when healthcare facilities start a dialogue with existing vendors about whether their products meet the current recommended criteria regarding sustainability. If this sounds like a daunting undertaking, fear not, as there are a wealth of resources available to help facilities begin their sustainability journey. For instance, Practice Greenhealth — the sister organization of Health Care Without Harm — has more than 20 years of experience helping facilities with these very issues. One prime example is its “Sustainable Procurement Guide,” which leads facilities step by step on integrating sustainability into their procurement processes.

Sustainability criteria are in addition to all the critical functionality, safety and efficacy requirements you require of your gloving vendors. We can no longer separate sustainability from population health, and therefore patient health.
Tracey Easthope, MPH

For sustainability as it pertains specifically to gloving, Health Care Without Harm’s “New sustainability criteria for examination and surgical gloves,” which was just updated in spring 2022, is a treasure trove of practical information for surgical leaders looking to seamlessly weave proven best practices into their processes. For instance, the document breaks down the criteria for suppliers in the areas of supply chain, product specifications and packaging into two main categories:

• Required, and
• Award/Desired.

In other words, the criteria are recommendations your gloving vendors should already be abiding by and those that you hope they’ll consider following some time in the near future. At the very least, vendors should be able to respond to all the required criteria. The packaging section is an area in wich vendors can make major sustainability inroads, because as Ms. Easthope puts it: “There’s no reason that packaging should be anything but sustainable.” Here, the document lists required criteria, including:

• The supplier should avoid packaging materials for which recycling schemes are unlikely to be established: a) polyvinyl chloride, b) polyvinylidene chloride, c) polystyrene, d) expanded polystyrene, e) regenerated cellulose, or f) non-recyclable plastics/paper combinations.
• The supplier should avoid packaging additives that impede recycling.
• Suppliers should reduce product waste through improvements in packaging design, such as preventing multiple gloves being dispensed at once.
• Packaging shall be reduced to the extent possible.

Again, the criteria listed above is what environmental organizations believe should be “Required,” but everyone should be working toward specifications in the “Desired” list, like: Supplier has implemented an Extended Producer Responsibility scheme that allows the separate collection of product and packaging waste and supports recycling.

“The desired criteria are higher-bar requirements vendors should start considering,” says Ms. Easthope.

Market rewards

Even if the environmental reasons for practicing sustainable glove purchasing aren’t compelling enough for some vendors just yet, Ms. Easthope says another incentive will likely prevent inertia: market forces. She says that vendors that provide the best and most sustainable product while meeting cost constraints will increasingly be rewarded in the market.

As for facilities that purchase these critical items? “Health systems should also follow the lead of those institutions that are making sure gloves are used appropriately and safely and not overused,” she says. “That is the most sustainable approach.” OSM

This three-part article series is supported by Ansell.