Doctors, patients want options to reduce dialysis waste adding to climate change

Dr. Caroline Stigant, a nephrologist at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria and a leading advocate for sustainable kidney care, said each hemodialysis treatment uses up to 500 litres of water and large amounts of energy.

Francis Silva watches the blood flow through a straw-like tube in his left arm to a dialysis machine where it's cleaned of toxins and returned to his body through a second tube.

The 60-year-old chef endures the four-hour process every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at St. Paul's Hospital where a 42-bed unit is dedicated to lifesaving hemodialysis but is also the source of a significant amount of medical waste that a group of nephrologists wants to curb across the country.

"Last year when I had a heart operation, it just got worse," Silva said of his kidney problems, for which he tried to find a bright side. "I need the rest. I've been standing for eight hours."

Down the hall, carts are loaded with blue plastic bins full of dialysis supplies that include plastic tubing in plastic and paper packaging. A supply room contains plastic jugs of solution that will be mixed with purified water and piped into the dialysis machines lined up against a wall.

A nearby room is stocked with boxes of more supplies including plastic saline bags — at least two per patient for each dialysis session.

Patient care manager Laila Aparicio points to a garbage bin filled with blood-contaminated tubing, which makes up a large volume of the clinic's biohazardous waste.

“We came here about 10 minutes ago and it was empty,” Aparicio said. "It would be awesome if we were able to decrease that as much as possible to reduce the environmental impact," she said of the waste that patients do not see.