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The Green Operating Room – Managing Spills

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When it comes green operating room considerations for our NHS and private hospital customers, we focus on supplying products that are made with the environment in mind.

Not only does this help hospitals and Trusts in their own move towards Net Zero, it also helps ensure vertical integration of environmental responsibility from manufacturer through to supplier and end user.

In this article, we look at how the manufacture, distribution and design of our absorbent theatre mats pays consideration to minimal carbon emissions and unnecessary waste at all stages.

Absorbent theatre mats

Playing an important role in fluid collection and management within the operating theatre environment, scrub areas and procedure rooms, our range of superabsorbent and anti-skid mats are high-tech products that aim for low level impact on the environment.

  • Manufacturing

Our absorbent mats are manufactured using 100% renewable energy, giving an environmental impact of 0.0 g carbon dioxide (g/kWh).

The raw materials for the mats are sourced locally, minimising the number of miles travelled by component suppliers.

The mats are then manufactured using cellulose raw material from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC is a non-profit organization that provides solutions to help safeguard the world’s forests and tackle deforestation, climate, and biodiversity challenges.

A focus on waste reduction during the manufacturing process also saw a 30% reduction in combustible waste during an 8-month period.

  • Distribution

Once made and ready to be shipped from Europe to our warehouse in the UK, loads are optimised to ensure that as many mats as possible are shipped in one load.

As the mats are thin and lightweight and do not contain unnecessary cellulose fluff material, a large number of individual mats can be shipped in the same vehicle.

When it comes to storing and shipping mats onto our customers, we also see keeping carbon emissions to a minimum as an important goal.

As our Carbon Reduction Plan for 2024 shows, we managed to bring our Scope 1 emissions down to zero through carbon offsetting. We achieved this by investing in the Carbon FootprintTM UK Tree Planting Scheme.

As we wanted to support a local initiative, our funding will help support the planting of trees in the Yorkshire and Humber region in school locations, educate children and support local wildlife habitats.

Other measures we take to minimise carbon emissions include combining shipments to the same customer at the same time, wherever practicable; using a hybrid working model that reduces staff travel to the office; and changing much of our company car fleet to hybrid of fully electric vehicles.

  • Usage

There is no doubt that the onus is increasingly on hospitals to reduce the amount of waste in operating theatres and hospital departments.

As a result, our superabsorbent floor mats are ideal for minimising waste, with one T-Mat absorbing the equivalent fluid of 13 standard inco sheets.

Our DryMax XL anti-skid floor mats also help to minimise waste, as they can be cut to the exact size required. Available as individual mats or on a 50-metre roll and dispenser, this means that you only need to use exactly the amount of mat you need on each occasion.

Interested in a mat trial for your green operating room?

We offer a range of superabsorbent and anti-skid floor mats, as well as sterile mats for use against the patient’s skin, and hybrid mats for specific procedures such as arthroscopies.

To see the whole range of our mats for your green operating room click here.

If you like what you see, then please call us on 0333 015 4345 or email info@cairntechnology.com to request samples.

 

Helping you towards Net Zero with medical devices

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Are you aiming to reach Net Zero with the medical devices that you use in your hospital? Do you know that you can cut costs, waste and carbon emissions with Stille’s handcrafted surgical instruments?

Swedish surgical instrument brand, Stille, is renowned for its durability, precision and handling. In fact, Stille is so sure of the quality of its products that every instrument is warrantied for 30 years.

But how can handcrafted instruments made from high quality stainless steel and titanium be more cost-effective than cheaper reusable instruments, or even disposable ones?

The answer is revealed by analysing Cost-per-Use. Take a pair of Stille scissors costing £150 that is used for 30 years and another brand costing £80 that is used to its maximum warranty of 10 years. You can quickly calculate how much cheaper Stille instruments are per use. Just see below.

Reusable surgical instruments made by Stille offer reduced lifetime cost and carbon emissions,

Further cost savings

As Stille instruments last for a minimum of 30 years if used, cared for, and serviced correctly, you will also save on the cost of purchasing a greater volume of instruments over that 30-year period.

So, if you are considering buying a cheaper instrument that is half the price of a Stille one, but is only warrantied for 10 years, you will end up paying a third more over the 30-year period than by investing in Stille instruments. In other words, £240 for three £80 instruments, instead of £150 for one Stille equivalent.

Environmental Benefits

Every surgical instrument that is made takes its toll on the environment through extraction of materials, manufacturing and shipping. By using Stille instruments instead of shorter-lasting reusables or disposables, you can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of your surgical instrument inventory.

What’s more, you will not only be reducing the number of surgical instruments that need to be disposed of at the end of their useful life, but you will also be able to minimise the carbon emissions associated with the disposal of the instruments used in your hospital.

To view our 2024 Carbon Reduction Plan, click here.

 

Do you want to view the Stille range?

To see the Stille range of instruments, just click here to browse our website.

Or if you would like to handle the instruments to get more of a feel for them, just call 0333 015 4345 to speak to our team or email us at info@cairntechnology.com.

If you can’t find what you need in the Stille range, we also offer other quality instrument brands for such things as laparoscopic surgery. Just contact us to let us know what you are looking for.

 

Cairn’s Carbon Reduction Plan shows sharp fall in emissions

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Medical product and service supplier to the NHS and private hospitals, Cairn Technology, has completed its Carbon Reduction Plan for its base year, 2023.

Although 2023 is the first year that the company has actively calculated its carbon emissions, it already has an ethos of trying to minimise its impact on the environment.

This has included suppling reusable surgical instruments that come with a 30-year warranty to superabsorbent theatre mats that can significantly reduce the volume of less absorbent mats going into clinical waste.

2023 saw Cairn Technology also focus on reducing carbon emissions relating to its operations. Whilst it already sources products from Europe to minimise delivery miles travelled, it has significantly reduced carbon emissions in two other key areas:

1. Scope 1 emissions have been slashed by almost 30%

2023 saw Cairn Technology make a 29.9% reduction in carbon emissions from the company cars used by some of its staff, including its consultants who deliver workplace exposure monitoring in hospitals across the UK.

This reduction was achieved by switching to lower carbon emission company cars, such as hybrid or fully electric.

2. Employee commuting emissions have been cut by 45%

Post pandemic, Cairn gave its office staff the choice to work flexibly with a split of home and office-based working.

By implementing this hybrid working structure, we have lowered our scope 3 category 7 employee commuting emissions by 45%.

Carbon emission reduction aims for the future

The company aims to become Net Zero for Scope 1 for the reporting year 2024 through carbon offsetting schemes.

Its longer-term commitment is to achieve Net Zero across all relevant scopes and categories by 2050, at the latest.

Director Peter Binns says: “Cairn Technology began in 1999 as an environmental consultancy that helped companies to reduce their emissions to atmosphere through continuous monitoring and manage the environmental impact of chemical spills. So environmental performance is deeply ingrained in Cairn’s identity.

“Our yearly Carbon Reduction Plans are a useful way to show our NHS and private hospital clients how we are supporting them in their own plans towards Net Zero.”

Read our full 2023 Carbon Reduction Plan

To find out about other ways in which we have reduced our carbon emissions, click here to read our full Carbon Reduction Plan for 2023.

If you would like to see the independent audit of the plan email info@cairntechnology.com for your copy.

 

The NHS Carbon Footprint Plus: 3 Ways absorbent mats can help

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The NHS Carbon Footprint Plus includes a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from supplier products, as outlined in Scope 3 of The Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

According to NHS England’s 2022 report Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service, one of the greatest areas of opportunity for a reduction in carbon emissions is through medical device suppliers.

So how can absorbent floor mats from Cairn Technology help the NHS in this area?

  1. Reduced absorbent mat waste through absorbency

Medical equipment accounts for 10% of the NHS Carbon Footprint Plus (1). So it stands to reason that any product that results in less waste than other market alternatives can help drive down this percentage.

As our T-Mat superabsorbent floor mat absorbs between 4 and 13 times as much fluid as the incontinence sheets on the market, theatre staff have to dispose of far fewer mats into clinical waste at the end of each procedure.

You can find out more about our T-Mats here: https://cairntechnology.com/product/t-mat-absorbent-floor-mat/

To make an enquiry please click here: https://cairntechnology.com/contact/

  1. Reduced absorbent mat waste through size

Another issue that theatre staff also face with absorbent floor mats is that they invariably have to use mats of a specific size.

With our DryMax XL absorbent mat for scrub rooms and theatre floors, staff can cut it to the size that they require. This is the case whether they buy boxes of the individual mats or the 50m roll with dispenser.

By cutting off only the size of mat required every time, theatres can see a significant reduction in the amount of mat waste throughout the year.

You can find out more about our DryMax XL mats here: https://cairntechnology.com/product/drymax-xl-mats-box-50/

Or for the DryMax XL on a Roll click here: https://cairntechnology.com/product/drymax-xl-roll-absorbent-mat/

Or to make an enquiry, please click here: https://cairntechnology.com/contact/

  1. An absorbent mat supplier committed to supporting NHS Net Zero targets

Cairn Technology is committed to helping the NHS meet or exceed its commitment on net zero emissions before the end of the decade.

With the biggest source of carbon emissions from medical equipment being in acute care, our absorbent mat products can have a real impact in this area.

Not only can our mats help to reduce waste within hospitals, as a supplier we are also looking to reduce our own carbon footprint in terms of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Scope, 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

From minimising the amount of paper that we use in the office, to recycling our packaging where possible and encouraging the use of electric and hybrid vehicles, we are already on the path to a greener business model in support of our NHS.

 The NHS Carbon Footprint Plus

For more information on how our absorbent mats, surgical instruments and other products and services can help support the NHS Carbon Footprint Plus keep an eye on our blog.

 

References:
  • https://www.england.nhs.uk/greenernhs/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2022/07/B1728-delivering-a-net-zero-nhs-july-2022.pdf