On Monday 3rd of April, local Member of Parliament for the constituency of Totnes and South Devon, Anthony Mangnall came to visit our office in Paignton, Devon to learn more about our waste volatile anaesthetic agent capture and recycling technology.
It was a pleasure to show Anthony around our facilities and engage in discussions regarding environmental policy and how to move forward with tackling the issue of environmentally harmful anaesthetics.
The manufacture of virgin anaesthetic agents and their eventual release as waste volatile gases is highly damaging to the environment and contributes significantly to the total carbon footprint of healthcare. Anaesthesia is administered by ~15,000 anaesthetists for ~450,000 surgical procedures annually in the UK¹. Of the anaesthetic that is administered, only 5% is metabolised by the patient’s body, meaning 95% is simply exhaled as gas and expelled into the atmosphere as waste. These waste gases are responsible for over 2% of all NHS emissions², equating to 97,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions released across the UK³.
SageTech Medical has developed a safe, sustainable and easy to use circular economy solution for the capture, recovery and recycling of environmentally harmful waste volatile anaesthetic gases. More about our innovative solution can be seen here.
We look forward to more productive conversations in the future and hope to continue to work with Anthony’s support to provide hospitals with a solution for the delivery of sustainable anaesthesia.
References:
1. Why it matters (facts & figures)
2. Putting anaesthetic-generated emissions to bed
3. Hu, X, et al, Resources, Conservation and Recycling 2021; Volume 167. The carbon footprint of general anaesthetics