Outlining how operating rooms are responsible for as much as 33% of a healthcare facility’s budget and waste, this Greenhealth article discusses how the University of Maryland Medical Center saw a reduction of 138,748 lbs (62,935 kg) of medical waste by switching to reusable surgical materials from disposable materials. Furthermore, it allowed the hospital to recover surgical instruments that inadvertently got mixed up with the surgical linens, increasing the cost savings associated with the reusable linens. The total cost savings of switching to reusables was nearly US$78,000 annually. 

The article also looks at how the University of Michigan Medical Center partnered with a third-party medical reprocessing agent to process more than 1 million reusable surgical gowns, avoiding 409,584 lbs (185,784 kg) of waste and saving the facility US$126,970.