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Reducing environmental impact from biomedical devices - A case study

Gustafsson, Andreas LU and Rosencrantz Ollén, Martin LU (2021) VRSM01 20211
Risk Management and Safety Engineering (M.Sc.Eng.)
Abstract
In the medical industry, environmental considerations have lagged
behind in order to focus on patient safety. A combination of both
should be possible to achieve. In this report, focus have been on
how environmental impacts can be lowered from disposable biomedical
devices. In order to quantify the impact from a product, the method
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used which gives a full life-cycle
perspective. The case chosen was the company Atos’s product Life GO
HME, a plastic product used by patients with tracheostomy. Using
LCA, energy usage and CO2-emissions for the product’s life-cycle was
quantified. The life-cycle that could be calculated were between
sub-products leaving sub-contractors till the product’s end-of-life.
... (More)
In the medical industry, environmental considerations have lagged
behind in order to focus on patient safety. A combination of both
should be possible to achieve. In this report, focus have been on
how environmental impacts can be lowered from disposable biomedical
devices. In order to quantify the impact from a product, the method
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used which gives a full life-cycle
perspective. The case chosen was the company Atos’s product Life GO
HME, a plastic product used by patients with tracheostomy. Using
LCA, energy usage and CO2-emissions for the product’s life-cycle was
quantified. The life-cycle that could be calculated were between
sub-products leaving sub-contractors till the product’s end-of-life.
Two different scenarios were chosen, the product being shipped to
Europe respectively America. One fully loaded cardboard box,
containing 1500 HMEs, with destination America led to 10.8 kg CO2 and
111 MJ used. Transportation was deemed to be the most impacting
process. For destination Europe, the values were 2.1 kg CO2 and 19.8
MJ used. In order to lower the environmental impact from the
product, focus should be on the packaging. One solution could be
introducing more bio-plastics such as Polylactic Acid (PLA), BioPET, Bio-PE or Polyhydroxyalkanoates. However, considerations
towards how this would affect the recyclability needs to be further
investigated. Another way of lowering the impact could be removing
the physical manual and providing instructions another way.
In order for the medical industry to save more lives, environmental
efforts could be a great area to focus on. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Gustafsson, Andreas LU and Rosencrantz Ollén, Martin LU
supervisor
organization
course
VRSM01 20211
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Life cycle assessment, LCA, environmental impact, sustainability
language
English
id
9057594
date added to LUP
2021-06-22 11:46:55
date last changed
2021-06-24 11:31:17
@misc{9057594,
  abstract     = {{In the medical industry, environmental considerations have lagged
behind in order to focus on patient safety. A combination of both
should be possible to achieve. In this report, focus have been on
how environmental impacts can be lowered from disposable biomedical
devices. In order to quantify the impact from a product, the method
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used which gives a full life-cycle
perspective. The case chosen was the company Atos’s product Life GO
HME, a plastic product used by patients with tracheostomy. Using
LCA, energy usage and CO2-emissions for the product’s life-cycle was
quantified. The life-cycle that could be calculated were between
sub-products leaving sub-contractors till the product’s end-of-life.
Two different scenarios were chosen, the product being shipped to
Europe respectively America. One fully loaded cardboard box,
containing 1500 HMEs, with destination America led to 10.8 kg CO2 and
111 MJ used. Transportation was deemed to be the most impacting
process. For destination Europe, the values were 2.1 kg CO2 and 19.8
MJ used. In order to lower the environmental impact from the
product, focus should be on the packaging. One solution could be
introducing more bio-plastics such as Polylactic Acid (PLA), BioPET, Bio-PE or Polyhydroxyalkanoates. However, considerations
towards how this would affect the recyclability needs to be further
investigated. Another way of lowering the impact could be removing
the physical manual and providing instructions another way.
In order for the medical industry to save more lives, environmental
efforts could be a great area to focus on.}},
  author       = {{Gustafsson, Andreas and Rosencrantz Ollén, Martin}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Reducing environmental impact from biomedical devices - A case study}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}