Plastic gets the boot in drive for greener operating room
A new plant-based product used in eye surgeries reduces plastic in landfills and eliminates carbon dioxide emissions. Naveen Chandra, MD, shows one of the new surgical tool basins now used in the operating room.
Douglas Oakley – April 10, 2025
An environmentally friendly change in eye surgery supplies at Kaiser Permanente Northern California has eliminated 300,000 plastic trays going to landfills over 2 years and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 70,500 pounds.
The 3 plastic trays used to hold surgical tools during each of the 50,000 cataract surgeries a year are now gone. They have been replaced with plant-based trays, made from sugarcane pulp that simply biodegrade when thrown away.
“We’re trying to make eye surgeries more sustainable,” said Naveen Chandra, MD, an eye surgeon who has been bothered by the amount of waste generated during surgeries since he became a doctor 28 years ago. “The waste we generate is massive.”
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