Operating Room Waste

One of the topics that is getting more and more attention in ophthalmic surgery is the waste generated by eye surgeries.

In the August 2024 edition of the journal Cornea, Shambhawi Thakur and colleagues published an article that noted the waste produced from corneal and conjunctival surgeries. They note that “assessing waste production form different ophthalmic surgeries may increase awareness of the negative environmental impact of surgical waste.” Though cataract surgery has received much of the attention in sustainability discussions in ophthalmology, it is probably obvious that it’s not only cataract surgeries that generate surgical waste.

This is a topic that does require continued attention and development of strategies to help reduce waste.