Circular solutions to PPE shortages
Part of the Community Resilience in Times of Crisis Series
Circular Triangle, along with partners Don’t Waste Durham and Sustainable Duke, published an advocacy brief summarizing research on sterilizing personal protective equipment (PPE) and localizing supply chains as a solution to the critical shortage of PPE during the COVID-19 crisis.
Rather than rely on an uncertain supply of PPE to arrive from China or become available from the current U.S. stockpile, sterilization and reuse of PPE is the solution to remediate the current shortage and prevent future shortages.
For the immediate term, we recommend that public health authorities and healthcare systems analyze the available research on reusing existing, single-use PPE through safe sterilization and develop shared,standard protocols.
For the longer term, we recommend the development of policies, protocols, funding sources, and are designed supply chain to enable durable PPE to be locally manufactured, sterilized, and reused.
