Sister Earth, Our Common Home: Toward a Sustainable, Planet Friendly Approach to Dialysis, a Paradigm of High Technology Medicine

In our high-technology, highly polluted world, medicine plays an important role balancing saving lives with the expenses of growing amounts of waste products, not only biologically dangerous (the potentially “contaminated” or “hazardous” waste) but also potentially harmful for the planet (nonrecyclable, plastic waste). Dialysis, the prototype of high-technology medicine, is central to these problems, as the present treatment of about 2 million patients produces an enormous quantity of waste (co nsidering hazardous waste only about 2 kg per session, with 160 sessions per year, that is 320 kg per patient, or about 640,000 tons of hazardous waste per year for 2 million patients, roughly corresponding to 6 nuclear aircraft carriers).

Source: Journal of Renal Nutrition - October 20, 2017 Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Giorgina Barbara Piccoli, David Mery Tags: ICURT Proceedings Source Type: research