Reducing Waste in the Operating Room: How Serres Sylva® Helps Hospitals
Operating rooms (ORs) are the heart of the hospital—but they’re also one of the biggest sources of waste. ORs can generate up to 70% of a hospital’s total waste, much of it from single-use items and packaging.1 Hospitals worldwide are setting ambitious goals for net-zero emissions and waste reduction, and the operating room is a critical area.
Can we reduce the amount of waste generated by single-use products while maintaining forerunner quality and improving OR workflows?
At Serres, we believe the answer is yes—and it starts with smarter design. In this blog, we’ll explore why OR waste matters, how our new Serres Sylva® Suction bag addresses the problem, and what this means for your team and your hospital’s sustainability journey.
Why Waste Reduction Matters for Hospitals
Hospitals are essential for patient care, but they’re also a major source of waste. And the numbers are hard to ignore:
- U.S. healthcare facilities produce 14,000 tons of waste every single day, with roughly 25% of it made of plastic.2
- in the UK, NHS providers generate 156,000 tons3 of clinical waste annually, much of it linked to surgical procedures.
- A single orthopedic surgery can create 6–12 kg of plastic waste.4
- In Norway, hospitals incinerate over 20,000 tons of plastic waste each year—enough to cover 100 football fields with a one-meter-high layer of plastic.5
For OR teams, this waste means higher disposal costs, more manual handling, and greater pressure to meet sustainability targets. Incineration remains common, but it carries a heavy carbon footprint that undermines climate goals. Cutting OR waste is one of the fastest ways to reduce environmental impact without compromising patient care
Global Strategies Driving OR Waste Reduction
Healthcare systems worldwide are launching strategies to cut waste and emissions. These initiatives show that reducing waste isn’t only about environmental responsibility, it also delivers cost savings and supports circular economy goals.
| Initiative | Key Focus | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| NHS Clinical Waste Strategy (UK)6 | Implement a 10-year plan to optimize clinical waste management | £11M annual savings and 30% carbon reduction |
| HSE Ireland Climate Action Strategy 2023–20507 | Waste reduction framework for procured goods | Strengthens supply chain resilience and supports circular economy principles |
| Global Road Map for Health Care Decarbonization8 | Position waste minimization as a baseline for effective waste management | Promotes circular economy and reduces emissions |
Takeaway: Cutting waste is a critical step toward sustainable healthcare systems—and the operating room is where the biggest gains can happen.
How Serres Sylva Helps Reduce OR Waste Compared to Other Suction Solutions
For OR teams, the key question isn’t just that waste is a problem — it’s how much of it can realistically be reduced. To understand the impact design alone can have, we compared four common suction solutions. This gives a clear benchmark for how different solutions perform — and how much the right design choices can reduce waste.
The comparison shows that design matters. According to our study, comparing suction solutions with different material weights, Serres Sylva reduces plastic waste by up to 40% compared to industry-standard soft suction bags. Here are the results for 100,000 annual uses:
| Suction solution (2 L volume) | Plastic waste per 100,000 uses | Plastic waste reduction vs Serres Sylva |
|---|---|---|
| Soft suction bag | 8,7 tons | 3,5 tons less plastic |
| Serres Sylva Suction bag | 5,2 tons | – |
When compared to rigid canister solutions, the reduction is even higher – with up to 80% less plastic waste. It’s a clear reminder that the right design decisions can reduce waste in OR.
Here are the results for 100,000 annual uses:
| Suction solution (2 L volume) | Plastic waste per 100,000 uses | Plastic waste reduction vs Serres Sylva |
|---|---|---|
| Rigid canister | 26,4 tons | 21,2 tons less plastic |
| Soft suction bag | 8,7 tons | 3,5 tons less plastic |
| Serres Sylva Suction bag | 5,2 tons | – |
Real Impact: The Numbers Behind the Change
A real-world case study shows how much these design improvements matter in practice. At a hospital using 100,000 suction bags each year, switching from the previous Serres design to Serres Sylva resulted in:
- Plastic waste reduced by 1.3 tons compared to previous Serres design.
- Paper waste cut by 20 kg thanks to lightweight instructions for use.
These real-world waste reduction cases show how much can be achieved through smarter material use alone. They’re not accidental — they come from targeted, evidence‑based design choices. The next section breaks down the design principles behind Serres Sylva and how these choices translate into less waste, lower impact, and a more sustainable OR workflow.
Design for Healthcare Sustainability: How Serres Sylva Suction Bag Delivers Measurable Impact
When it comes to reducing waste in the operating room, design matters. With a design-for-reduction approach, we can deliver the same clinical performance using less material—without compromising safety or ease of use.
That’s the idea behind the Serres Sylva Suction bag: smart product design that makes a real impact for healthcare sustainability. Here’s how:
- Strong but Lightweight: Uses 20% less material compared to previous Serres 2L suction bag design—less plastic, same performance.
- Clinical Performance You Can Trust: Meets all relevant medical suction standards and developed together with healthcare professionals to ensure reliability, safety, and ease of use.
- Hybrid Design for Less Waste: Combines a reusable suction canister with a single-use suction bag. Only the lightweight bag is disposed of after each operation.
- Optimized Packaging Efficiency: Serres Sylva’s high packing efficiency means four times more products fit into a single box compared to similar-use products, reducing packaging waste, lowering the number of boxes to handle, and improving storage efficiency.9 The cardboard boxes contain no plastic packaging materials, the standard suction bags are not individually packed, and no unnecessary packaging layers are used.
Your OR Can Make the Difference: Steps Toward Sustainability
Sustainability in the operating room doesn’t have to be complicated. Serres Sylva proves it. With its smart hybrid design and material‑efficient engineering, it helps hospitals cut waste—without changing how your team works or compromising patient safety.
Want to dive deeper into the numbers? Download our white paper to explore full lifecycle findings and design insights.
FAQ: Operating Room Waste, Suction Bags, and Healthcare Sustainability
ORs can generate up to 70% of a hospital’s total waste, much of it from single-use items and sterile packaging. This leads to higher disposal costs, more handling for staff, and a larger carbon footprint for the hospital.
Serres Sylva uses 20% less material than previous designs and pairs a reusable suction canister with a lightweight disposable suction bag. It removes unnecessary packaging and fits seamlessly into existing Serres setups — no workflow changes required.
A hospital using 100,000 Serres Sylva bags annually can cut plastic waste by 1.3 tons compared to the previous Serres design — and by up to 40% when switching from industry-standard soft suction bags.
Authors
Ville Vuorinen, Product manager, M.Sc. (Tech.) in biomedical engineering
Jari Herranen, Expert in sustainable innovations, M.Sc. (Chemistry)
References:
3 https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/nhs-clinical-waste-strategy/
4 https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsopen/zrad062
6 NHS England » NHS clinical waste strategy
8 Road Map for Health Care Decarbonization Executive Summary.pdf
9 Based on competitor study performed by Serres in 2023.
