Topic

Carbon Footprint of disposable pulse oximeters

Debs kerry
Debs kerry • 3 April 2025

Is anyone doing any work on looking at the carbon footprint of disposable and reusable pulse oximeters?  I'm supporting a colleague with a project swapping from disposable to reusable pulse oximeters in neonates.  I would like to identify the carbon footprint of recycling disposable pulse oximeters, which is a project she has just done.  I believe these are basically just smelted down, into the liquid metal component.  I will naturally use the carbon emissions for waste avoidance, but I'm also interested the manufacturing emissions and emissions from the metal recycling.  I could probably draw parallels to other electrical wires, if anyone has these please?

I would also like to calculate the carbon footprint of the reusable probes.  Although these would be a bit more robust and potentially a marginally higher manufacturing footprint, I presume I could probably use the same manufacturing footprint for both?  Then just divide it by the average number of uses for the reusable ones?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide

Comments (2)

Melanie Maddison
Melanie Maddison

This paper is about adult sats probes but may be helpful in some aspect
Duffy J, Slutzman JE, Thiel CL, Landes M. Sustainable Purchasing Practices: A Comparison of Single-use and Reusable Pulse Oximeters in the Emergency Department. West J Emerg Med. 2023 Nov;24(6):1034-1042. doi: 10.5811/westjem.58258. PMID: 38165184; PMCID: PMC10754185.


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