Life Cycle Assessment of Surgical Care Products The Cases of a Drape and a Gown

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a valuable tool for assessing environmental and health impacts of products, including those of surgical care. This LCA was conducted in collaboration with the company Mölnlycke Health Care regarding two of their surgical care products: a drape called BARRIER® OP-towel and a Standard Classic operation gown. Scenarios consisting of material changes were defined in order to identify opportunities for lowering environmental impacts related to the two chosen products and also to assess the net human health impacts of the drape using the disabilityadjusted life years (DALY) indicator. Regarding the drape, the findings from this LCA study suggest that there is often a tradeoff between the use of fossil resources and global warming on the one hand, versus land use on the other. While the change of material presents several opportunities for lowering the environmental as well as human health impacts, there is no unambiguously preferable scenario for the drape. Therefore, more radical changes might need to be assessed in order to find more clear-cut environmental improvements. The drape is a net positive contributor to the human health regardless of the chosen scenario. The negative health impacts derived from the LCA are very low compared to the positive health impacts from the use of the product as reported in previous studies. Regarding the gown, all material changes in the scenarios resulted in considerable reductions in environmental impacts for effectively all impact categories, which is why the implementation of one or more of the material changes assessed is recommended. In addition, more detailed assessments with improved and more case-specific data is recommended, since the assessment of the gown was largely based on generic data and approximations.