Hospital trials biodegradable theatre caps in bid to reduce waste
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A hospital has marked a “crucial step” in addressing medical waste as it trials sustainable theatre caps worn by staff. The Golden Jubilee University National Hospital in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, has helped create theatre caps from plant-based cellulosic fibre in a bid to reduce waste created by single-use disposable caps.
The project was led by researchers from the University of Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt University. The team says around 800,000 single-use caps are used each year in Scottish hospitals and they may take up to 300 years to decompose, whereas the new caps are biodegradable.
They are also colour-coded for staff in different roles, helping patients and colleagues identify them more easily. Staff at the hospital will now trial the caps and provide feedback to find if they can be rolled out across Scotland. It is part of the broader Design Hopes (Healthy Organisations in a Place-based Ecosystem, Scotland) project, led by Professor Paul Rodgers of the University of Strathclyde and Professor Mel Woods from the University of Dundee.
The project was recently awarded £4.6 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as one of four Green Transition Ecosystem hubs in the UK, which aims to address climate change issues. Dr Euan Winton, assistant professor of design at Heriot-Watt, said: “NHS Scotland faces massive resource-driven issues, with millions of single-use disposable theatre caps going to incineration in Scotland annually.
