According to new research published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, biodegradable medical gowns, which are supposed to be greener than conventional counterparts, actually emit harmful greenhouse gases. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of disposable plasticized medical gowns, both conventional and biodegradable, has increased. Landfills are now overflowing with them.
Because the biodegradable version decomposes faster than conventional gowns, conventional wisdom held that it is a greener option because it takes up less space and emits fewer chronic emissions in landfills. That conventional wisdom could be incorrect.
Plasticized conventional medical gowns take many years to break down and the biodegradable gowns degrade much faster, but they produce gas emissions faster like added methane and carbon dioxide than regular ones in a landfill.
Fengqi You
“There’s no magic bullet to this problem,” said Fengqi You, professor in energy systems engineering at Cornell University. “Plasticized conventional medical gowns take many years to break down and the biodegradable gowns degrade much faster, but they produce gas emissions faster like added methane and carbon dioxide than regular ones in a landfill,” said You, who is a senior faculty fellow in the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. “Maybe the conventional gowns is not so bad.”
According to this study, led by Cornell doctoral student Xiang Zhao, biodegradable gown production is 11% more toxic to the environment than conventional alternatives.
The researchers discovered that using landfill gas capture and utilization processes in biodegradable gown sanitary landfills can reduce 9.79% of greenhouse emissions, nearly 49% of life-cycle landfill use, and save at least 10% of fossil resources by employing onsite power co-generation.
When compared to biodegradable gowns in landfills with additional gas emissions, conventional gowns can pose 14% less toxicity to humans, cause 10% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and are nearly 10% less toxic to freshwater.
Biodegradable gowns can be more environmentally sustainable than conventional gowns if the gas capture efficiency is increased above 85%. “It’s nice to break the plastic down into smaller pieces,” Zhao said. “However, those small things decompose into gas, and if we don’t capture them, they become greenhouse gases that enter the atmosphere.”
The Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) funded this research with NSF and New York State Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology, and Innovation funds.
