Above: Dr. Julie Strychowsky, a paediatric otolaryngologist and leader of the Operating Room Planetary Health Invervention Team at LHSC.
April 22, 2025
The Operating Room Planetary Health Intervention Team (OR-PHIT) at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) is helping the organization reduce its carbon footprint with the Bring-Your-Own (BYO) Reusables to Surgery initiative.
The BYO Reusables to Surgery program helped reduce carbon emissions at LHSC by roughly 3,400 kilograms in one year, which is equivalent to the carbon emissions produced by driving across Canada twice.
The program involves encouraging patients having surgery at LHSC to bring their own reusable bags to transport their clothing and other personal items home after their surgery. Patients are also encouraged to bring a reusable water bottle. In the past, a single-use plastic bag would typically be given to these patients to transport their items, and water would be provided in single-use cups.
The program was inspired by a similar initiative at North York General Hospital, which was brought to the attention of the team at LHSC through the Ontario Surgical Quality Improvement Network’s (ON-SQIN's) Cut the Carbon campaign.
Led by Dr. Julie Strychowsky, a paediatric otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat surgeon) at LHSC, the OR-PHIT team worked with HMMS Purchasing and the LHSC Green Team to determine the carbon footprint of LHSC’s single-use garment bag use. ON-SQIN – a community of practice that brings together surgical teams from across the province to identify opportunities to improve surgical care quality – helped with the calculations.
“We found that over a year – from June 2022 to May 2023 – 30,600 bags were given to patients having surgery at LHSC,” Dr. Strychowsky says. That is equivalent to the carbon emissions of driving halfway around the earth. “Given this data, we saw this project as something that could have a big impact while remaining very manageable for staff and patients.”
The project began with a trial cycle at LHSC’s Nazem Kadri Surgical Centre in May 2023. Over a seven-week period, 87 per cent of patients during the trial period brought their own belongings bags and 80 per cent brought a reusable water bottle.
The early success of the trial led to a full launch of the program at University Hospital (UH) and Victoria Hospital (VH) in November 2023. Six months later, 60 per cent of patients at UH and 78 per cent at VH were bringing their own bags with them to surgery. Results continued to improve in the most recent audit, conducted in October 2024, when 72 per cent of patients at UH and 79 per cent at VH brought their own bags to surgery.
Collaboration across several teams and disciplines was critical to the project’s success, including Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC), the LHSC Green Team, Day Surgery and Decision Support. The program required buy-in and support from the pre-admission clinic, surgical administrative partners, and surgeons.
The OR-PHIT team is now focused on evaluating expansion of the program to other areas, like endoscopy and diagnostic imaging, that also use plastic garment bags.
“We have such a great opportunity to make an impact,” says Dr. Strychowsky. “People have shown they care about environmental sustainability initiatives and want to translate that into their workplace. This is nice because it’s an easy change that people can see having an immediate impact.”