Guest blog #18: Catherine Baxter living trash-free...it's normal...

"Today wasn’t so bad...

I woke up a little late so I couldn’t really figure out what I was going to do for breakfast. I didn’t have time to go to the food co-op this weekend, so I was a little worried about my first meal. Luckily for me my roommates left out muffins, so I ate one! Thank god for roommates who bake. I went to class and did some work and then it was time for lunch. I brought a plate, silverware and a cloth napkin with me. I didn’t have time to go home to eat lunch, so I decided to get Subway. I asked them to put the sub on the plate with no paper. They were really confused at first. They didn’t understand why I didn’t want it wrapped, but they agreed to my request and I got my sub without any wrapping. Also, I paid in cash so I didn’t need to sign or receive any receipts. I am not done with the day yet, work is next. But so far this is going well.

When I brought my plate back with my sub on it, my friends laughed. I don’t think that they were laughing at me necessarily, but they were laughing at the fact that I was able to do something so different than them in their normal subway experience. But isn’t that what people normally do? Laugh at things that are unexpected or make them uncomfortable? The men working at subway laughed at my request, my friends laughed at the result. I certainly do not think that they were being spiteful, but I think these are things that I am bound to encounter when doing something that others aren’t used to seeing. Seeing something they don’t see as normal.

What is normal today anyway? We are raised to be an individual. It will suit you best when applying for colleges, looking for internships, and getting jobs. If you are a unique applicant, you will stand out. Except being unique in this sense isn’t looked at in the same way. Why do people look at unique experiences or talents as positive but unique social or political views as strange?

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I went to work this afternoon, and my boss, Holly, was really great. She wanted to hear all about what I was trying to do and was giving me all the tips she could think of. She suggested using the giant green reusable gloves instead of the latex disposable ones. She also said that when I was dealing with dirty dishes I didn’t have to use gloves like the other employees. Instead I could just put on the green gloves when I was carrying clean plates and bowls.

Also, since today was my first day of trying to limit my trash, she let me be the card swiper, and I didn’t have to wear gloves at all! I’m really lucky that in a job where this could be nearly impossible, I have a boss who is very understanding. We’ll see how my other boss is tomorrow…"

~Catherine

Harming nature and creating trash in the name of medicine and health

Health is a concept I think about frequently: What does it mean to be healthy? What does it take to be healthy? How do other people influence one's health? How do nature and the environment influence health?


It is easy to look up the standard definition of health, written by say, the World Health Organisation (WHO): "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." What is striking about this definition is its anthropocentrism. What this definition implies is that health is contained within a human or a group of humans, and one is well when all is in sync within oneself and within a social group. When you ask someone what it means to be healthy, more likely than not they will reply that health ends with her. As long as she eat wells, mind absent of stress, and are surrounded by good people she can have a beer with, she is healthy. Unfortunately, we live in a continuous world (at least macroscopically). Air and water and nature begin where the human body ends, contained in its skin. Health includes our surroundings. It is not only that our environments influence our health, but we influence its "health," too, and consequently are influenced in return by it. Yet, because of how medicine is practiced in many places around the world, our conceptions of what it means to be healthy, and what it takes to be healthy, are firmly at odds with the natural world. Consequently, we cannot define health that ends merely in a healthful mind and healthful body.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, medical waste (and trash) includes bandages, gloves, syringes, surgical instruments, culture dishes and glassware, etc. This list also includes "highly hazardous, mutagenic, teratogenic and carcinogenic chemicals, such as cytotoxic drugs used in cancer treatment and their metabolites," as well as nuclear wastes, and chemicals that aren't metabolised in our bodies.


The common perception of the problem of medical waste is not that waste itself is a problem, but how this waste can spread disease and harm other humans; indeed medical waste is thought of as a public health problem. Here's what the WHO says: "Health-care waste is a reservoir of potentially harmful micro-organisms which can infect hospital patients, health-care workers and the general public. Other potential infectious risks include the spread of, sometimes resistant, micro-organisms from health-care establishments into the environment...Wastes and by-products can also cause injuries, for example radiation burns or sharps-inflicted injuries; poisoning and pollution, whether through the release of pharmaceutical products, in particular, antibiotics and cytotoxic drugs, through the waste water or by toxic elements or compounds such as mercury or dioxins."


But the medical industry is a disposable industry. The value of the human life is worth more than the value of all it takes to produce the chemicals, plastics, metals, and elements to provide health - and we end up "disposing" these materials, either incinerating them, or landfilling them. Patient care generates, on average, 5 to 6 kg of waste per bed daily, or about 750 to 800 million pounds of waste annually in the United States. Of this, about 6% constitutes biomedical waste while the remainder consists of general waste, i.e., paper, plastics, and food (full text here).


Brian shared some thoughts with me a few days ago: Is avoiding the spread of disease fundamentally at odds with reducing waste? It just struck me when working on the ambulance: for the care of one patient, we create more waste than you do in a year. I'm not sure it has to be that way. We already autoclave and reuse a ton of equipment, but some seem impossible to circumvent. Gloves are a good example.


Can we be healthy in full harmony with nature?