We Are Killing the Planet........

Peritoneal dialysis must be one of the most waste-producing activities on the earth.  Each month, we receive an entire pallet loaded with supplies.  It takes a FORKLIFT to get this stuff off the truck, and it takes a good while to get it all off the pallet and into the house, since we cannot conveniently get the forklift itself past the steps to the front porch. 

This truck has to drive from wherever it loads (and I really have no idea where that is!) to us.  We aren't the only people in the area who get supplies from these folks, but we are the only ones in our zip code.  We won't even consider the energy it takes to make, package and ship the supplies to that point.  Each pallet is then loaded, and wrapped with plastic wrap to keep our supplies on our pallet and separate from everybody else's supplies. 

We use one box per day of dialysis fluid, at twenty-two pounds per box, so thirty of those with a few extra in case of emergencies.  They also supply a few boxes of fluid for CAPD (at twenty-six pounds per box).  We also use one cassette per night, and they come in boxes of twelve, so three per month.  We also use small caps to seal off her tube after dialysis.  They come in pretty small containers, less than a foot long, and light.  Then there might be extra boxes of drain bags as needed and a few other smallish things.  Each dialysis fluid box is VERY sturdy cardboard, about 24" x 14" x 8".  We can fit two dozen of them underneath her bed, and remember it is a top bunk bed, so it's a ways off the floor.

So.  The daily waste includes at least one cardboard box, sometimes as many as three.  Each bag of fluid comes in a thick plastic bag (a BEAST to tear off - just ask my nephew about his emasculating experience with one especially stubborn one).  Each cassette is also bagged, and each tube (there are seven per cassette) has a one inch plastic cap.  We have to clean everything with bleach, so add a weekly gallon bottle. Then there are the surgical masks we use. I have to wear one to set up, and Babygirl and I both have to wear them when we hook and unhook her from the machine. I do tend to wear mine more than once, and so does she, but one sneeze and you're DONE LOL.

The rules about what can be recycled are simple.  If it has been exposed to her body waste (cassette and tubing, face masks, and drainage bags and tubes if we use them) or has been filled with dialysis solution (the dialysate bags, even though they remain sterile), it cannot be recycled.  We can (and do) recycle the boxes and wrapping bags. 

I have two kitchen-sized trash cans in Babygirl's bedroom, both black to match the decor.  One is for recycling, and one for trash. I empty the trash can at least once a week, and the recycling, twice.  The boxes are broken down separately.

Then there are the other cleaning supplies.  Because of the coming transplant, we are to keep her room as clean as possible.  I have canisters of Clorox wipes everywhere, where once I would have used reusable rags. We have liquid antibacterial soap where once I would have used bar soap.  I have purchased a swiffer-style mop that has disposable antibacterial wet pads for our floors because traditional sponge mops breed germs. And let's not forget the trash bags.

One place I was safely able to get away with staying a bit green was by purchasing several dozen white washcloths to use for drying our hands after the two minute hand scrub.  We are supposed to use paper towels, but the center okay'd these as long as we bleach them.  Oh, add one extra load of laundry done with hot water.  Ah, yes, and let's mention the hit our electric bill takes from running the dialysis machine all night, or alternatively, a heating pad for CAPD.

It's one more small view of the fallout from this disease.

DeeDee