AMBUSUS

Numerous disposable products made of plastic and metal are used daily in outpatient care facilities and nursing homes. Since each facility is responsible for its own hygiene in operation, such products are often more attractive than reusable products. At least about 76,300 to 114,500 tons of recyclable waste per year can be assumed. 

It would seem sensible to enable the recycling of non-hazardous products or parts of products in the more than 100,000 outpatient care facilities in Germany as well. Specifically, recyclable products must be identified and sorted with regard to their hazard potential and material properties. 

The aim is to provide practices, outpatient clinics and care facilities with comprehensible and concretely implementable instructions for action that will enable them to handle the disposable medical devices they use in a more sustainable manner. The diversity of municipal disposal methods must be taken into account. The materials to be developed should make it easier for operators to get started with the topic of recycling and close knowledge gaps, while remaining compact and application-oriented. In this way, realistic recycling perspectives are to be opened up. To this end, procedures should be evaluated and tested that are sufficiently specific to the particular wastes generated in medical facilities and for which special provisions may have to be made. The selected process must be versatile enough to be used meaningfully across the landscape of ambulatory healthcare facilities. It takes into account stakeholder requirements and facilitates the handling of waste with the goal of recycling or reusing it in a sustainable manner to the greatest extent possible. An assessment of the technical options is incorporated into the recommendations. In addition to instructions for action and guidelines, appropriate documents for training the groups of people involved are to be drawn up in order to implement a safe and reliable system.