Just announced is a partnership between Linneaus, a division of Mars Veterinary Health companion animal hospitals in the UK, and SageTech Medical’s veterinary division, which manufactures medical devices to capture anesthetic gas waste.
While only contributing a small fraction of greenhouse gases, anesthetic gases have global warming potential up to 3,700 times the equivalent amount of CO2 emissions. Consequently, even the comparatively small volume of anesthetic gas can have a significant environmental impact. Up to 95% of anesthetic gas delivered to a patient is not metabolized, leaving it to enter the atmosphere and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
The human medical profession has been using capture technology to address operating room gas waste. SageTech Medical has been a leader in gas recycling technology by developing a fully automated extraction unit that extracts the collected gas waste from absorbent canisters and recharges them for reuse. The canisters can be reutilized hundreds of times.
The Mars Veterinary Health partnership will begin with a pilot of 10 small animal hospitals with the ultimate goal of capturing anesthesia emissions throughout Mars Veterinary Health and the entire veterinary profession in the future.
Iain Menneer, CEO of SageTech, noted, “At SageTech Veterinary, we are excited to share our developed technology and work alongside Mars Veterinary Health to significantly reduce the carbon footprint associated with the direct release of waste volatile anesthetic agents to the environment.”
Anesthetic waste gas capture is part of Mars Incorporated’s Net Zero Roadmap, which plans to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
