Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 2873: On the Reduction of the Biological Danger of Environmental Contamination by Using a `Complete and Reusable Thoracic Drainage System` (Sustainability)

A clean environment is essential for human health and well-being. A significant share of total waste is represented by hospital waste that is produced in increasing quantities by sanitary units, with the appearance of the disposable tools. Taking into account the unfavourable environmental impact, the biological danger that this waste represents, and the restrictive legislation imposed by the European Union, urgent measures are needed to reduce their quantities. In this regard, the paper refers to the design of a completely reusable thoracic drainage system and to the positive implications that this system has on the amount of hospital waste. The research starts with the presentation of the medical system from Romania, continues with the classification of the hospital waste, then highlights the dangers and the risks caused by this and analyzes the impact on the sensitive groups. Furthermore, the paper presents the disposable bicameral and tricameral thoracic drainage device systems used in hospitals and then the advantages of using a completely reusable thoracic drainage system. The paper introduces also a research method based on the “opinion questioning”. The method uses a questionnaire with 23 items, addressed to physicians, because, despite restrictive legislation related to hospital waste management, this is not always respected. Each participant of the study works in a different hospital so that the questioned sample is representative.