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What a Waste! by Kate Gilbert |
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Have you ever noticed how much packaging and rubbish comes with all our diabetes supplies?
Later I had to change a pump site (and a sensor site) and there was another bucketload of plastic and paper and packaging .... (pictured below)! But
wait there’s more …. My delivery of pump sensors arrived
a few days later. A babushka doll of packaging starting with a huge
box about half by one meter, containing a polystyrene insulted box,
which leads us down to the items themselves which are ten sensors,
approximately 5cm x 2cm sized each, in a box of their own. This one
is challenging as the sensors are a little fragile, needing to be
kept between 2 and 10 degrees celsius. But it still does seem to be
a little over the top! Like any good Reality Checker, I jumped on the website to see whether anyone else had concerns about all this waste that diabetes seems to generate. Another Kate jumped straight into the discussion, saying: “This is seriously my biggest hang-up about having D. I HATE the amount of waste I'm creating. It is also one of the reasons I don't want a pump...”. A heated debate ensued and on further reflection I had to retort: “If the waste issue is your totally biggest issue with d, then you ain’t got the same condition as me!” It is however a concern, so I put the
collective wisdom to work and found some recycling and waste management
experts amongst our ranks. As well as lots of creative minds who have all
provided some useful advice. RECYCLING DIABETES
PACKAGING – WHAT CAN GO IN? Our resident Reality Check recycling expert, Spike tells us what can and can’t be recycled through normal collections :
SAFELY DISPOSING
NEEDLES AND OTHER SHARPS Spike, who works for a major recycling company, provided a reminder not to put sharps and needles into the recycling or any other bin for that matter. “Currently
the recycling facilities in the world still use a lot of manual
sorting,” he explains.
“Needles, sharps and the like would be a big no no. They cause a
lot of heartache for the workers on these machines as they basically work in
a garbage dump and health and hygiene is very important - sharps are bad
news.” Diabetes
Australia-NSW provides information about how to dispose of sharps, stating on
their website that: “Your
sharps must be secured in a strong puncture resistant container, such as an
Australian Standard Sharps container (available from Diabetes Call
Diabetes CONTROVERSIAL
CULPRITS Pre-filled, single-use insulin pens Many
insulin companies now supply their insulin in disposable insulin pens which
you use until the end of the vial of insulin then throw away. We believe that they are not
recyclable. And in the words of one
Reality Checker echoed by many others, “I think they are a
crime!!”. Some
people have expressed concerns about reusing the standard pens for fear of
bacteria or infections and this led to them preferring an option where you
dispose it after a short time. When
comparing disposing a syringe after every injection or a pen after every vial
of insulin, one person found “The stack of syringes [that I would use
in the same time period] was at least fifteen times bigger than the amount of
plastic the pen and pen needles took up … so the disposable flex pens
are not too environmentally disastrous. I use up a lot less plastic because
of them.” Many
disagreed and found they are happy to reuse pens. One member explaining, “The
preservative in the insulin (phenol) is enough to keep the apparatus clean
enough FOR ME at NZ temperatures”.
Others reported using re-usable pens for many years with no infections
or other complaints (aside from the whole injecting thing). Syringes For
those choosing to use syringes, the standard recommendation to use a syringe
once and discard it is responsible for a lot of waste. Some people find they
need to follow this protocol, but others have made a personal choice to
re-use and have found no problems. Reality Checker Sean re-uses his syringes
until they wear out and break (about 6 weeks), and has never had a site
infection.
An
emerging trend in insulin pump consumables is to supply the infusion sets
with a single-use insertion device (pictured). One member reported that this is a major
factor influencing her decision between the different types of infusion sets
as she feels it is a waste of plastic. A
recent discussion on the Reality Check website found lots of good tips that people
had to minimise waste from our diabetes supplies. Insulin pump infusion sets with a re-usable
option “ I use
[insulin pump infusion] sets that come with 5 complete lines and cannulae
plus 5 cannulas only. I re-use the lines to minimise waste. The brand I use are
‘Comfort’. Minimed
Paradigm Silhouettes also have the 10 cannulae /5 line options. These
however, are manual insertions” – Jane, NSW Making sure strip foil wrappers are picked up
through recycling machines “When
using meters with individually foil-wrapped strips, I take all the foil
wrappers and jam them in an aluminium can, then crush the can. This way the
material gets picked up by recycling system.
I understand that there may be a little bit of plastic contamination
(a lot of foil strips have a plastic coating) but it should come out in the
melt process.” – Sean, Melbourne Re-using canisters from blood testing strips A range
of creative uses for these have been suggested: ·
“Salt, sugar, & cocoa for holidays or
camping” – Sean, Melbourne ·
“Toiletries such as moisturiser and
sunscreen” – Fay, Melbourne ·
“My collection of studs are in a Test Strip
Canister. I used a Marker Pen and wrote Studs on the label.” –
Tony, ·
“They're also good for holding medication
(tablets). Enough for a weekend away without needing to take the whole
supply.” – Tony, Reducing the size of the pump packaging “After
a set change, I try to stuff all the used things into the same package and
then wrap it all up tightly with the used tubing. So only a small pack to
throw away.” – Cat, Donations to your local kinder or childcare
centre Reality
Check moderator, Tash works in childcare, so says she never has any issues
with finding ways to reuse what others might put in the bin! Her creative suggestions, in a finger
painting type of way, include: ·
Lines from pumps make excellent clear scoobies ·
Canisters from strips make brilliant stacking
blocks... my autistic children sit for hours with the tub of them and build
all sorts! ·
The clear plastic caps for the pens needles make
brilliant craft material for 3D crafts... the last lot were glued and then
sprayed silver for a part of our space project! ·
The little plastic covers for the quick sets (used
when you disconnect)... are great for crafts too ( I never use them on
myself) ·
The little blue plastic covers on the needle for the
quick set are great for 3D crafts too.. I even collect the plastic caps on
the plunger end of the syringes! Re-use insulin infusion set lines as plant
ties. “I put them
to good use in the vege garden.” – Lyndal, Frankston Re-using syringes “The only thing I have been doing to
reduce my waste is re-using the same syringe till I can no longer pierce the
vial/skin or read the graduations!!” - Kate Write
to the companies asking whether their packaging is recyclable, and if not why
not? Suggesting they reduce the size of their packaging. We don’t have any reports of anyone
actually sitting down to do this … YET! THE WISH LIST
– Pharma companies take note! “I'd like my [pump infusion sets] to be a
separate part-separately packaged (recyclable!) - to my tubing and reservoir,
so that if you do screw up a site, it's only one small bit that you're
changing, not the whole shebang...”.
And another thought for the blood glucose manufacturing
companies: “I got a few strip
packets for a while back that just had a rubber band around the wad of strips
instead of the plastic wrap? I thought that was a nice change, but …
they're back.” – Torie “Really
the packaging that goes with diabetes (or anything else for that matter)
should be designed to be recycled or accepted back by the company. Maybe what we need is a system where we can
take our own containers to a depot, and get a bunch of strips without
packaging. You could include a little bit of silica gel in each container so
moisture is controlled. I can see it now, press a little button and 100
strips fall out of the vending machine into the snazzy container of your
choice....” – Sean,
Melbourne “The
foil wrappers on strips could be a lot smaller, like 1/2 the width they are
now. In combination with a strip half the lengthy, you could reduce the foil
to 25% of current size.” – Cat, To join in the discussion, and share your own
tips for minimising waste, click through to:
Recycling
& Reusing Packaging from D Stuff
on the Reality Check Discussion Forum. Published:
April 29, 2008
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Last
weekend, I did a big clean up because I was running out of space in
my "diabetes drawers". I opened a few boxes of strips and
ditched the packaging to make more room, which turned to be a heap
of more room, and a heap of rubbish .... (pictured,
left)!
