Well, it's not going great. I got Covid. Which made me recall that medical waste is a tremendous contributor to our plastic scourge. One source (the non-profit, Practice Greenhealth) estimates that 24% of all medical waste from hospitals is plastic. That's a lot!!! Every hospital in every city/county/region/state is throwing plastic away as an amazingly large volume.
But we are up against the usual: cheap to produce, easy to use, sterile, and easy to toss out. Some medical facilities are trying to cut the plastics habit and remembering that not every single piece of medical equipment needs to be new and can be reused: surgical basins and sterilization wraps for example do not come into contact with patients. Some hospitals are trying to recycle their plastics, but this is fraught with inconsistency and it's easier to just not try. Most of it goes into the landfills or incinerators -- emitting toxic plastic fumes into the air as smoke belches from the incinerator smokestacks near where many people live and work.
Medical personnel and patients alike are growing in awareness of the financial cost and the "it never goes away" cost of tossing plastic into the waste stream.
I thought of this as I made my Covid journey last week. I tested once to see that I was positive. I tested again after 4 days after starting Paxlovid treatment and again at 5 days post-treatment. I tested again the morning I left on a trip. I tested again the day I got home. And with each test I opened a plastic outer packet within which were 3 plastic inner packets of the test kit, every component of which was also made of plastic.
Awareness abounds. The solution evades. But I do know that there are places I can make different choices and places where I cannot. We can only do what we can do. But at the very least we must do something.
Here's to our health, for ourselves and our planet...©
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