In the medical facility flu clinic one of us attended in fall 2025, the technicians sanitized their hands with an antiseptic gel, put on standard nitrile medical gloves, removed the cap from the syringe, administered the vaccine, dropped the syringe in a plastic \u201csharps\u201d box, and applied a cotton swab and bandage to each patient. Finally, they removed and disposed of the gloves to complete the patient\u2019s paperwork. This is the process for vaccine administration in many places.<\/p>\n
Assume a medical facility has 30,000 employees and requires everyone to be vaccinated. If they follow the process described above, the facility will use 60,000 gloves this year to administer the flu vaccine. Assuming each pair weighs 6 grams, that adds up to nearly 90kg of gloves. Every single glove must be manufactured, transported, and disposed (either landfilled or incinerated). Each step in this glove\u2019s \u201clife cycle\u201d produces waste and pollutants, such as greenhouse gases, not to mention that global glove manufacturing has had long-standing issues with forced labor and other labor violations<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\tWhat American hospitals can learn from India about waste<\/a><\/p>\n If they go to an incinerator after use, one pair of non-sterile gloves is estimated to release between 26g<\/a> and 68g<\/a> of carbon dioxide equivalents. For this facility, this unnecessary glove use emits 780kg-2040kg of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. That equals emissions from a standard passenger vehicle driving between 2,000 and 5,200 miles \u2014 roughly the one-way distance between Seattle and Miami.<\/p>\n If all 18 million health care workers<\/a> in the U.S. similarly receive a flu vaccine this year, that equals 36 million gloves, 108 metric tons of garbage, and between 468 and 1,220 metric tons of greenhouse gases. That\u2019s like putting an additional 110 to 285 passenger vehicles on the road this year<\/a>. This does not include other emissions or costs of administering the vaccine \u2014 the structure that physically houses the flu clinic, the electricity for the lights, the table and syringes, or the transportation to get everyone there. It\u2019s just the gloves.<\/p>\n In addition, there is a significant cost to the glove use. Glove cost has risen to $29 per 1,000 with precursor materials in short supply<\/a>.<\/p>\n And in many cases, gloves for vaccine administration simply are not necessary. Although hands must be disinfected or washed before preparing the vaccine and between patient contact, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration<\/a> does not recommend wearing gloves for administering vaccines unless the person has open lesions on their hands or is likely to come in contact with the patient\u2019s bodily fluids<\/a>.<\/p>\n Infectious disease groups in the U.S. are now supporting wise use of gloves<\/a> across all health care activities that maintain safety while balancing the negative environmental impacts of our resource use. Glove use is discouraged when staff are providing \u201cdry\u201d care \u2014 for example, when contacting intact skin; handling bed rails, IV poles, unsoiled patient belongings; charting; or delivering or collecting food trays. Initiatives like the Gloves Off! Campaign<\/a>, originally started in the U.K., prove that changing these policies is entirely feasible.<\/p>\n The excessive use of gloves for administering the flu vaccine is not, of course, the only form of waste in health care<\/a>. There are inappropriate procedures and tests, inefficient scheduling, and unused or wasted supplies, to name a few<\/a>. We support sustainability efforts in our home health systems. All of this waste adds up. It can feel overwhelming to try to change this large, bureaucratic system, and starting small is better than not starting at all.<\/p>\n This year, everyone going in for their flu vaccine, or stepping into their clinic, office, or operating room, should give some thought to the process in front of them. Start to ask questions. Why are we practicing this way? Is there a better, more efficient way? What can we do to eliminate needless waste? Health system administrators or chief sustainability officers should explicitly demand in your third-party vaccination contracts for the fall that \u201cno gloves are required unless clinically indicated.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether a hospital contracts with a third party to vaccinate employees, or they do it in-house, now is the time to assess PPE policies to be sure they align with best practices. Every health system should likewise assess other policies that might create excessive or unnecessary glove use. The road to a more sustainable health care system starts one step at a time.<\/p>\n Cassandra Thiel, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of population health at NYU Langone Health and the president and CEO of Clinically Sustainable Consulting<\/a>, where she tackles data and strategies for environmental sustainability in health care. Preeti Jaggi, M.D., is a professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine, director of antimicrobial stewardship at Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta, and co-founder of the Sustainabil-ID<\/a> initiative, a global community of health care professionals driving\u00a0sustainable\u00a0practices in infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last October, as we stood in line for our annual flu shots at our respective health systems, we…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[390,134,527,3274,111,139,69,3059],"class_list":["post-594174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-climate-change","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-hospitals","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1228130392-768x432.jpg\")
\t\t<\/p>\n