S3020 Going Green: A Single Endoscopy Center’s Experience in Sustainability

Introduction: As the practice of sustainability in healthcare evolves, the challenge lies in balancing patient care, cost to the system, and the environmental impact of practices. As an outpatient endoscopy center, we sought to utilize the repetitive nature of our procedures to enact changes to improve our sustainability practices. We believe that small changes, done consistently, could make a significant impact for the environment while maintaining optimal patient care and safety. After studying our systems, we sought to minimize the waste generated without affecting quality, patient care, or center efficiency. We also measured the economic implications of these sustainable practices. Methods: Changes to increase sustainability were implemented from January 2024 to April 2025, and quantified in waste production as well as cost. There were a total of 15,744 procedures. We targeted the use of suction canisters by ordering $5300 machines as opposed to a $2.86/each disposable canister. Procedural gowns were switched from thin disposable gowns costing $0.66 to more durable, reusable gowns at a cost of $2.36 which lasted an average of 10 procedures. Disposable buttons for the endoscopes were exchanged for reusable buttons costing $2899.92 as opposed to $15.79 per procedure. The data for waste production was estimated and extrapolated to a per-procedure basis. It was also quantified that an average of 8 suction canisters, 40 juice bottles, 20 gowns, would be placed in 1 trash bag. The cost of reusable versus an equivalent amount of disposable items was estimated for these procedures. Results: Our primary end point of increasing our sustainability practices was the reduction of waste entering into the landfill. Over a 16-month period of time, there was a reduction in 0.37 bags of waste produced per procedure leading to a total of 5,878 trash bags kept out of the landfill. There was also a significant cost savings, after factoring in upfront cost and labor, with a reduction in per procedure cost of $16.48 for a total of $259,387.72 over the 16 months measured. Conclusion: Our single center experience shows that changes implemented to increase our sustainability practices during a 16-month period of time met our primary end point of reduction of waste produced per procedure with significant cost savings. We were able to prioritize improving our sustainability practices while optimizing patient care and maintaining efficiency in our practice. Other practices should consider these simple, but impactful changes.