You might think twice before throwing out that old ventilator machine. Medical equipment has now joined the recycling movement, with sales even found on eBay, Inc.
A new article in Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology describes this emerging industry.
You might think twice before throwing out that old ventilator machine. Medical equipment has now joined the recycling movement, with sales even found on eBay, Inc. A new article in Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology describes this emerging industry. BI&T is the bi-monthly journal of Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation.
In 1998, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated a joint partnership to reduce the volume of waste in hospitals 50 percent by 2010. Hospitals and health care facilities are joining this initiative by adopting waste policies. Policy options include recycling, reuse through donation, reprocessing, refurbishing, and reselling medical equipment.
The two main reasons for these electronic waste, or e-waste, policies are environmental issues and budget considerations. One agency, Alliance Medical Corporation in Phoenix, Arizona, wrote on its Web site that they help eliminate as much as 7,000 tons of medical waste from landfills, and they project savings this year of more than $92 million in supply expenses to their customers.