Ecotex, K-Bro Cited in Canadian Reusable PPE Research

Research led by the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care on personal protective equipment (PPE), intentionally designed and manufactured as reusable, including gowns, goggles, face shields and elastomeric respirators, was conducted to identify prospects for reducing plastic PPE waste with a focus on opportunities for reduction and reuse in the health system. Most of the PPE used in Canada is made of plastic, and much of it is disposable, according to a news release.

The research, titled “A Circular Economy Model for Hospital-Generated PPE and Medical Single-Use Plastic Waste: Demonstrating Opportunities for Reduction and Reuse,” was funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), and also explored the many synergies with other government and health-system priorities that would enhance opportunities and support for a reusable PPE system. Other government priorities such as reduction of GHGs from the health system, and promoting circular economy approaches to resolve resource and waste issues, could also be supported through this approach.

Access to PPE, especially during the initial stages of the pandemic, was poor due to challenges in the global supply chain. A comprehensive reusable PPE health system, which includes reusable products, local infrastructure for reprocessing, sanitizing and disinfecting, with associated transport and tracking systems, should be explored as a strategy to ensure 100% access for some PPE, and for the many environmental, social and economic co-benefits of such a system. “It is a lot easier to scale up your reuse cycles such as laundering gowns or replacing the filters in your reusable respirators than it is to remanufacture more of something … and of course it creates less pollution,” said Dr. Andrea MacNeill, medical director of Planetary Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, British Columbia, one of the project hospital partners. “Our healthcare laundry partner, K-Bro, was able to easily scale up laundering of reusable gowns and keep up with our needs. In some of our BC hospitals the reusable gown use ranges from 80-100% now.”

Timely access to PPE was reported by numerous hospitals as the primary motivator to secure reusable PPE such as reusable gowns. “Converting to reusable gowns immediately introduced a predictable supply of product for the foreseeable future,” said Altaf Stationwala, CEO, Mackenzie Health, Ontario. “The fact that it also reduced our environmental footprint was an added benefit. Mackenzie Health has now converted all of the isolation gowns used in the ICU to reusables.”

This thought was echoed by project partner University Health Network (UHN) in Ontario. According to Joanne Bridle, executive director, FM-PRO operations, UHN, “Early in the pandemic, UHN and Ecotex, our healthcare linen services partner, collaborated on the development of a high-volume reusable isolation gown program. This process was quickly scalable, enabling Ecotex to launder and return clean reusable isolation gowns up to three times a day during the peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic, when reusable isolation gown use had more than tripled to 120,000 gowns per week. Through this creative and sustainable local initiative, Team UHN was consistently provided with high-quality reusable isolation gowns to continue caring for patients safely during this very challenging time. Today, over 99% of the isolation gowns used at UHN are reusable.”

Cost savings were also reported by hospitals using reusable gowns. For example, UHN reported significant cost savings where reusable isolation gowns were 60% of the cost of disposables, and Toronto-area hospitals that used reusable isolation gowns saved an estimated $70-million dollars over the first two years of the pandemic. In BC, Surrey Memorial Hospital reported that reusable isolation gowns were nine times cheaper per use than disposable gowns.

Organizations that provide healthcare laundry services are an integral part of the reuse infrastructure. “Healthcare laundry processing facilities are critically important support infrastructure and were invaluable in ensuring that Canadian healthcare workers had IPAC-approved, reusable PPE barrier gowns throughout the COVID pandemic and beyond,” said Randy Bartsch, executive chairman of Ecotex Healthcare Linen Service, and the incoming chair of TRSA. “Our TRSA member operators partnered with the hospitals they serve to assure an uninterrupted supply of reusable PPE gowns, reprocessed and sanitized locally at accredited, and certified laundry facilities across the country, while saving the health systems money and reducing the massive environmental waste impacts of single-use disposables. Our TRSA members process more than 80% of all the healthcare laundry at hospitals in Canada, and are key suppliers of reusable PPE gowns and other protective medical garments and textiles.”

To read the full release, click here. For more information, visit the Coalition’s project webpage at https://greenhealthcare.ca/ppe-msup/. A copy of the research paper titled “Reusable Personal Protective Equipment in Canadian Healthcare: Safe, Secure and Sustainable,” is available in Healthcare Management Forum, Volume 36(4), 2023.