During the Summervibes Festival 2025, hosted by the Wageningen University and Research, WP 3 lead Dr. Ir. Bas van Vliet joined the live podcast production of the EWUU Science Circus. In this podcast episode called ‘Science Bites: How healthcare pollutes the planet – and how to fix it’, Bas shared how we can make healthcare more sustainable and about The ESCH-R project. The ESCH-R project has been transforming Dutch hospitals by cutting down on disposables and pioneering circular strategies.

“I’m leading the Work Package: How We Act in this project and I supervise PhD student Heidi Annala. She is studying the behaviour on the working floor in a hospital. She’ll start following people and will observe them on how they use single-use materials vs. reusable materials.

Next to that, she is studying all the protocols, and what they tell about how to use and which materials to use and which not. After that stage of studying behaviour and protocols, we are going into a phase of co-creation to come up with new ideas on how to change our habits and routines in using the materials. The project is very helpful because the procurement managers, the suppliers of the materials, the hospital managers, and the nurses etc. are all involved. The whole ecosystem is involved in the project and is motivated to make an impact.

The only way to solve this is by using co-creation. It wouldn’t make sense to invent another protocol on how to behave circular, without involving the whole ecosystem.” 

Read more about Work Package 3: How We Act via this link.