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What are eco-costs?

Eco-costs and the difference between blue wrap and rigid sterile containers?

Healthcare opinion leaders are increasingly calling for value-based methods of health care cost - “consider the public health effects of pollution from activities up and down the supply chain…(and) incorporate environmental performance into decision-making”. [1]

 

The idea here is that “the external costs of a product should be added to (its) economic costs to enable a fair comparison in product benchmarking between a cheap but polluting product and a 'clean' product.” [2]

Eco-costs are one way of making such a valuation

Chart eco-costs

Eco-costs of blue-wrap vs. rigid sterile containers (RSCs)

The eco-cost comparison model shows that blue wrap has a decidedly higher environmental impact over 5,000 sterilisation cycles in comparison to rigid sterile containers. [3]

Table eco-costs of blue-wrap vs. rigid sterile containers (RSCs)

More interesting facts about sterile packaging systems

[1] Sherman, Jodi & MacNeill, Andrea & Thiel, Cassandra. (2019). Reducing Pollution From the Health Care Industry. JAMA. 322. 10.1001/jama.2019.10823.

[2] Friedericy, H.J.; van Egmond, C.W.; Vogtländer, J.G.; van der Eijk, A.C.; Jansen, F.W. Reducing the Environmental Impact of Sterilization Packaging for Surgical Instruments in the Operating Room: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Disposable versus Reusable Systems. Sustainability 2022, 14, 430. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010430

[3] Friedericy, H.J.; van Egmond, C.W.; Vogtländer, J.G.; van der Eijk, A.C.; Jansen, F.W. Reducing the Environmental Impact of Sterilization Packaging for Surgical Instruments in the Operating Room: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Disposable versus Reusable Systems. Sustainability 2022, 14, 430. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010430