An Environmental Analysis of Reusable and Disposable Surgical Gowns

Vozzola, Eric; Overcash, Michael; Griffing, Evan

doi:10.1002/aorn.12885

Cited by 94 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“… 75 Woven polyester (T280) fabrics provided better water-repellency and increased protection against strike-through liquids and pathogens, but the thermal comfort could be a problem. 151 A recent study of the North America market 152 reported that the majority of modern reusable surgical gowns are composed of woven polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fabric in the noncritical zones and knitted PET fabric in the critical zones. A barrier fabric is used to reinforce the knitted PET in the critical zones, where 70% of the barrier fabric is based on expanded polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) and the remaining 30% is based on breathable polyurethane (PU) barrier membranes.…”

Section: Personal Protective Textilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(g) Comparison of environmental impact of reusable (R) and disposable (D) surgical gowns. 152 NRE = natural resource energy, GWP = global warming potential.…”

Section: Global Market and Supply Chain For Personal Protective Clothmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent study shows that the selection of reusable medical apparel could reduce natural resource energy consumption (∼64%), greenhouse gas emissions (∼66%), blue water consumption (∼83%), and solid waste generation (84%) ( Figure 6 f). 152 …”

Section: Environmental Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Sustainable Personal Protective Clothing for Healthcare Applications: A Review

Karim

Afroj

Lloyd³

et al. 2020

ACS Nano

337

232

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Personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) from highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19. However, hospitals have been at risk of running out of the safe and effective PPE including personal protective clothing needed to treat patients with COVID-19, due to unprecedented global demand. In addition, there are only limited manufacturing facilities of such clothing available worldwide, due to a lack of available knowledge about relevant technologies, ineffective supply chains, and stringent regulatory requirements. Therefore, there remains a clear unmet need for coordinating the actions and efforts from scientists, engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, and regulatory bodies to develop and produce safe and effective protective clothing using the technologies that are locally available around the world. In this review, we discuss currently used PPE, their quality, and the associated regulatory standards. We survey the current state-of-the-art antimicrobial functional finishes on fabrics to protect the wearer against viruses and bacteria and provide an overview of protective medical fabric manufacturing techniques, their supply chains, and the environmental impacts of current single-use synthetic fiber-based protective clothing. Finally, we discuss future research directions, which include increasing efficiency, safety, and availability of personal protective clothing worldwide without conferring environmental problems.

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Section: Personal Protective Textilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(g) Comparison of environmental impact of reusable (R) and disposable (D) surgical gowns. 152 NRE = natural resource energy, GWP = global warming potential.…”

Section: Global Market and Supply Chain For Personal Protective Clothmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Sustainable Personal Protective Clothing for Healthcare Applications: A Review

Karim

Afroj

Lloyd³

et al. 2020

ACS Nano

337

232

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, many institutions still mainly use reusable surgical gowns for their surgeries for various reasons. 3,4 Waterproof or water-resistance material is one of the materials commonly used for reusable surgical gowns. These cloth materials give the gown a smooth surface, which makes them slippery.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A combined tie-fastening method for the reusable surgical gown with two neck tie belts to improve wearing comfort

Chang

Chen

Dai

2020

Preprint

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Objective The reusable surgical gowns made of slippery materials have the tendency to slip down as they are being worn. The rear neck tie(s) can sometimes loosen, and this would cause the surgical gown to slip down somewhat, making the medical staff feel uncomfortable. To fasten the neck ties of the surgical gown with 2 neck tie belts, we proposed a simplified method of fastening the 2 sets of tie belts together as one tie, instead of fastening them separately. We evaluated this combined tying method for its ability to secure the gown and its wearing comfort.Results We found that combined tying tends to loosen more than separate tying after vigorous upper extremities exercise. But, for wearing comfort during the actual performance of the surgeries, the combined tying method was significantly better than the separate tying method. As a result, for reusable surgical gowns that have 2 rear neck ties, we suggest the 2 sets of rear neck ties could be fastened together as one combined tie. With this, tying could be performed easier and faster, and wearing comfort could be improved.

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“…Vozzola et al [12] Knit PET/expanded polytetrafluoroethylene reusable surgical gown vs nonwoven PET/polypropylene surgical gown…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing reusable to disposable products: Life cycle analysis metrics

Alshqaqeeq

Griffing²,

Twomey

et al. 2020

J Adv Manuf & Process

Self Cite

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This research is to produce the first quantitative evaluation, using global warming potential (GWP, kg CO 2 eq), of all published cradle-to-gate life cycle studies that compare reusable vs single-use products. We seek to determine whether there are consistent and fundamental factors that differentiate disposable and reusable products. A comparative assessment was made of the cradle-to-gate life cycle analyses of all published comparisons of reusable and single-use products from 1990 to 2016. A literature search found only 20 products in which a full life cycle analysis of cradle-to-gate (supply chain, manufacturing, reprocessing, and packaging of the reusable item) and supply chain plus manufacturing for the disposable had been published. GWP or carbon footprint was used as the environment comparison metric to which we added energy for the product manufacturing metrics. In this diverse set of products, the reusable product was consistently lower in cradle-to-gate energy use and global warming potential than the comparable single-use product. However, no apparent product characteristic appeared to govern the extent by which the reusable had a lower carbon footprint. These compelling results were compared with two other references in which disposable products were reported as better. However, when the data were reviewed with those authors, they reevaluated and found errors in calculations and corrected the results to then identify the lower reusable GWP impact compared to the respective disposable. The diversity of products studied and the consistently lower GWP impact of reusable products herein may suggest that products with reusable/ disposable options could be predicted to show that the reusable is better than the single-use option.

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An Environmental Analysis of Reusable and Disposable Surgical Gowns

Cited by 94 publications

References 28 publications

Sustainable Personal Protective Clothing for Healthcare Applications: A Review

Sustainable Personal Protective Clothing for Healthcare Applications: A Review

A combined tie-fastening method for the reusable surgical gown with two neck tie belts to improve wearing comfort

Comparing reusable to disposable products: Life cycle analysis metrics

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