Rethinking Lifestyle

There’s got to be a better way! I have been a dialysis patient for the last nine months. My kidneys no longer function. I’m dependent on home dialysis. This means that every morning I discard over a kilo of tubes and empty bags after using them once only – all PVC plastic. This dialysis keeps me alive. I’m grateful for the technology, and I’m grateful for the medical science that makes this all possible.

But dumping over a kilo of plastic every day hardly seems responsible behavior in an era when it’s increasingly apparent that our atmosphere won’t tolerate much more pollution. Furthermore we also know the supply of the PVC raw product, oil, is limited.

I feel guilty every morning throwing all this plastic into the garbage (PVC is not recyclable), but what’s the alternative? If I wish to remain alive, there is none. But there could be. Were government willing to create the right incentives, an alternative would be viable. Wherever SINGLE-USE plastics are used it is because it’s convenient. This is true across the board, not only within medical praxis. And it will remain that way unless government, acting on our behalf, yours and mine, intervenes.

We have all become familiar with the three R’s of recycling: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In the case of medical PVC, Reduce is out. It is unlikely that we can continue with modern medicine without PVC plastic. Recycling PVC plastic is possible, but rare. Furthermore where it is recycled, it gets down-cycled to fence posts and speed bumps. What about Reuse. Surely we can be more creative in our reuse of this valuable product.

I understand the appeal single-use PVC has for the medical establishment. They are concerned about infection, and PVC apparatus comes sterile. When I connect myself to this apparatus, I take special steps to ensure that my hands are sterile, but I can safely assume that the PVC bags and tubes are sterile. But there was a time in the not so distance past that PVC was not omnipresent and whatever apparatus was used needed to be reused. It was precious and medial staff sterilized their equipment.

I begin my dialysis procedure in the evening. I open a box with tubes and bags. I marvel at the technology that has gone into what’s in the box: beginning with the extraction of the oil from below the ground; the processing of the oil into components one of which is the precursor of the PVC; the combination of the oil derivative with chlorine etc. to make the PVC; the transformation of the raw PVC into bags and tubes; and finally the filling of the bags with solution and the folding of the tubes so it won’t be a tangled mess. If the technology and labour exists to do all of this, surely the technology also exists that would take the stuff I throw out in the morning, clean and sterilize it, and reassemble it so it can be used again.

Why doesn’t this happen? I can only speculate. Partly, I’m sure, it’s convenience, but mostly it’s lobbying (or salesmanship). It begins with the oil company. It wants to get the most value for its product as it markets it to the PVC processor. The PVC processor identifies the contribution PVC apparatus can make to procedures requiring sterility and sets to work manufacturing tubes and bags. Having made the bags and tubes, this manufacturer now markets this to the medical establishment which embraces it because of its convenience.

Currently we have a company that takes the bags and tubes, fills the bags with appropriate solutions, assembles the tubing and packs it all into a box. A big truck [thankfully] delivers 30 plus of these boxes to my house every month, and I take the PVC contents of those boxes to the curb every garbage day.

But it needn’t be that way. This company that now uses all new material could be collecting the used PVC I send to the landfill, clean it and reuse it. But it will only do that if there is an appropriate, adequate incentive. This is where government [acting on our behalf] comes in. It must create that incentive.

When the possibilities for PVC first became apparent, no one thought about diminishing resources, climate change, mounting garbage heaps, or the poisons released into the atmosphere in the manufacturing of PVC. So no price was put on that pollution. And we all came to accept that as normal. It has been part of our affluent lifestyle. But now we know better. Things need to change if we wish to pass a reasonable planet on to future generations. Minimally we need to put an adequate price on pollution. And we could do so much more.