What Would It Mean for Health Care Organizations to Justly Manage Their Waste?

Abstract

Waste generated by health care includes harmful emissions and often disproportionately affects already vulnerable communities. Justly restructuring health care waste management involves better understanding key drivers of waste production, using sustainability as an ethical value to guide disposal decisions and practices, and reducing overall disposal quantity. Restructuring can be facilitated by making existing waste audit data transparent, incorporating waste accounting into social responsibility metrics used to evaluate health care organizational performance, and implementing policies that prioritize frontline workers' safety.