Thinking green: Modelling respirator reuse strategies to reduce cost and waste
Open accessAbstract
Objectives To compare the impact of respirator extended use and reuse strategies with regard to cost and sustainability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design Cost analysis. Setting USA. Participants All healthcare workers within the USA. Interventions Not applicable. Main outcome measures A model was developed to estimate usage, costs and waste incurred by several respirator usage strategies over the first 6 months of the pandemic in the USA. This model assumed universal masking of all healthcare workers. Estimates were taken from the literature, government databases and commercially available data from approved vendors. Results A new N95 respirator per patient encounter would require 7.41 billion respirators, cost $6.38 billion and generate 84.0 million kg of waste in the USA over 6 months. One respirator per day per healthcare worker would require 3.29 billion respirators, cost $2.83 billion and generate 37.22 million kg of waste. Decontamination by ultraviolet germicidal irradiation would require 1.64 billion respirators, cost $1.41 billion and accumulate 18.61 million kg of waste. H 2 O 2 vapour decontamination would require 1.15 billion respirators, cost $1.65 billion and produce 13.03 million kg of waste. One reusable respirator with daily disposable filters would require 18 million respirators, cost $1.24 billion and generate 15.73 million kg of waste. Pairing a reusable respirator with H 2 O 2 vapour-decontaminated filters would reduce cost to $831 million and generate 1.58 million kg of waste. The use of one surgical mask per healthcare worker per day would require 3.29 billion masks, cost $460 million and generate 27.92 million kg of waste. Conclusions Decontamination and reusable respirator-based strategies decreased the number of respirators used, costs and waste generated compared with single-use or daily extended-use of disposable respirators. Future development of low-cost,simple technologies to enable respirator and/or filter decontamination is needed to further minimise the economic and environmental costs of masks.
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Decontamination and reusable respirator-based strategies could reduce the number of N95 respirators and surgical masks used, costs and garbage generated.
“Decontamination and reusable respirator-based strategies could reduce the number of N95 respirators and surgical masks used, costs and garbage generated [7,10].”
From Waste Management and the Perspective of a Green Hospital—A Systematic Narrative Review (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
The Discussion (Principal findings) and Results (Mask usage) report that decontamination and reusable-respirator strategies reduced respirator requirements, costs and waste in the model. The paper models daily surgical-mask use as a separate strategy, but does not show that decontaminating or reusing respirators reduces the number of surgical masks used. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe pandemic dramatically improved demand for N95 respirators and surgical masks, leading to supply shortages, spending of billions of dollars, and production of great amounts of medical waste.
“the pandemic has dramatically improved the demand for N95 respirators and surgical masks across the world, leading to supply shortages, the spending of billions of dollars and production of great amounts of medical waste.”
From Waste Management and the Perspective of a Green Hospital—A Systematic Narrative Review (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
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- Authors
- Chu, J., Ghenand, O., Collins, J., Byrne, J., Wentworth, A., Chai, P. R., Dadabhoy, F., Hur, C., & Traverso, G.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
- Columbia University Irving Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Traverso, Giovanni
- ORCID
- Venue
- BMJ Open
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2021-07
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- e048687
- ISSN
- 2044-6055 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8290946
- OpenAlex
- W3185565409
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 2
- FWCI
- 4.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- BMJ Open (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, UROP- N/A)
- National Institutes of Health (5T32DK007191, K23DA044874, R44DA051106)
- Karl van Tassel Career Development Professorship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Not applicable/no grant number)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Infection Control and Ventilation
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Healthcare and Environmental Waste Management
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › Infection Control in Healthcare
- Keywords
- respirator reuse, N95 respirators, respirator decontamination, ultraviolet germicidal irradiation, healthcare worker personal protective equipment, COVID-19 pandemic, cost analysis, sustainability, surgical masks
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Decontamination, Humans, Hydrogen Peroxide, Masks, Ventilators, Mechanical, Pandemics
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