In Scotland, a hospital is helping to address medical waste by providing staff with biobased caps for the surgical theater. Made from cellulosic fiber, the Golden Jubilee University National Hospital in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, helped develop the caps with University of Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt University.
According to the inventors, around 800,000 single-use caps are used each year in Scottish hospitals. These traditional caps are made from petroleum-based materials, and each can take up to 300 years to decompose.
“NHS Scotland faces massive resource-driven issues, with millions of single-use disposable theatre caps going to incineration in Scotland annually,” said Dr. Euan Winton, assistant professor of design at Heriot-Watt. “The new sustainable theatre caps represent a crucial step in addressing this significant wastage and demonstrating the power of design in tackling environmental challenges in healthcare.
The caps are part of the broader Design Hopes project led by Paul Rodgers of the University of Strathclyde and Professor Mel Woods from the University of Dundee.