Essay by Eric Worrall
Who knew hospital waste dumpsters were potentially full of gold and platinum?
Qld’s hospitals tackle health of patients and planet in emission reduction efforts
…
The World Health Organisation (WHO) lists climate change as the single biggest health threat facing humanity, responsible for the deaths of 13 million people annually.
In Australia, the healthcare sector accounts for 7 per cent of the nation’s total emissions and, in Queensland, nearly 50 per cent of government emissions are from the public health system, primarily driven by electricity consumption.
It is why all 16 of the state’s public health services are implementing sustainability measures, from procurement to design, recycling and energy reduction.
…
Metal recycling is one of the 42 recycling streams CHQ now has.
“We have platinum, iridium and gold wires, and silver in some of our conductive materials [used in] sleep studies, respiratory studies, and our cardiac catheterisation labs — precious metals that were going in the bin,” Ms McBrien said.
…
Last year, the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane became the first Queensland hospital to decommission reticulated nitrous oxide anaesthetic gas.
Ms Williams said while the gas was safe and suitable for birthing and maternity, it was a potent greenhouse gas, 300 times stronger than carbon dioxide.
Prone to passive leaking, 70 per cent of the gas was being lost into the atmosphere through valves, wall outlets and hospital pipelines.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-01/qld-hospitals-tackle-patients-planet-health-emission-reduction/106486828
Of course, if you are thinking of searching for precious metals in hospital waste, the downside of dumpster diving in a hospital waste is all the nasty pathogens. Which is probably why suspect items get discarded regardless of how precious they are.
As for the other items on the list, as far as I can tell most of the green measures being adopted are the kind of pointless virtue signalling we’ve come to expect.
There is one item on the list, the cutting back of anaesthetic gasses because of greenhouse gas potential, which really upsets me.
Pipeline distributed nitrous oxide is always available. Nitrous oxide is a not a particularly mobile gas like hydrogen, so the reason the pipelines are leaking is because they haven’t been properly maintained.
Cannisters seem an inferior solution, because they can run out, forcing the use of less suitable anaesthetics.
Nitrous oxide is used because it is cheap, but the focus on anaesthetic GHG potential upsets me because it seems to imply putting virtue signalling ahead of patient care.
The reason hospitals use high GHG potential anaesthetic gasses like various chloro-fluoro carbons is they work better. Chloro-fluoro carbons tend to be insoluble in water. When the medics adjust the dose, the patient’s body responds instantly to the change, because they don’t have heaps of anaesthetic gas dissolved in their bloodstream.
Not using anaesthetics to which patients’ bodies respond instantly can turn a slight miscalculation into a life threatening medical emergency – and I suspect, in the near future, the mother of all class actions, after some lawyer realises granma died because the hospital cared more about climate change than keeping her alive.
With 8 billion people in the world and an average life-span of 80 years, that’s 100 million deaths every year. Exactly what is the cause of death of these 13%? How much longer would they live if not for climate change?
I smell a rat lurking in those details.
I think I found that rat.
In 1981, at the start of AGW-scare, the global annual death rate was at 47 mio according to ourworldindata.
The global population was 4.5 billion.
Nowadays the global population is at 8.3 billion,
while the death rate is at 63 mio.
While the population increased by almost 100%
the death rate increased by 1/3.(devastating global warming, I guess)
Now the WHO literary claims that almost all of the increase is caused by global warming.
The question here is : How can a 4 billion increase in population only result in in a 7% increase in death rate,
as the death rate went up by 16 mio and 13 mio of those are attributed to warming
this leaves us with an increase of only 3 mio.
And an increase of only 3 million should be statistically impossible with a 4 billion population increase and a 78 years life expectancy =
we either reached immortality (at least those born 1981+)as this is what you get with 3 mio deaths per 4 billion minus accidents,
or the WHO, run by a communist war criminal indoctrinated in England, is lying.
It is safe to say that global warming does nothing, at best something beneficial.
Every day is All Fools Day…The date of commencement is your choice…
And your comment is SO important it needed bolding. Get over yourself.
The issue of anesthetic gases being reduced because of their potential as greenhouse gases makes me so sad that I would probably need a small dose of nitrous oxide just to keep from sinking.
That eco-leftists impose suffering on themselves to signal their virtue—I find that stupid, but if they’re masochists, that’s their business. That they let other people suffer because “it’s better for the planet” is disgusting.
I remember that study that caused quite a stir, about pollution from aerosols in inhalers. They probably managed to make a few impressionable, insecure young people feel guilty for using Ventolin!
All of this makes me think the air must really be unbreathable around an eco-leftist.
With apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan…
The Mikado:
The eco-leftist quack who wearies
With tales of countless dooms
His teeth, I’ve enacted
Shall all be extracted
By terrified amateurs.
(And without planet-killing anæsthetic gas. )
Perhaps remind them that the CO2 they are expelling during the operation could outweigh the effect of leaking NO2, especially during child-birth when the mother-to-be is breathing deep and fast plus screaming
It is strange they should see variation in weather as a health risk greater than any other.
Maybe they have not heard about the drug addiction deaths and drug wars that are killing thousands of people across the globe every day of the week.
If WHO genuinely wanted to improve the health profile of humanity might I suggest that take a look at drug use and misadventure from recreational consumption. They might also consider the impact drug abuse has on family members impacted by a chronic drug user.
I say all this knowing they will do no such thing. The WHO is simply an enabler of UN policy propaganda designed to assume authority it does not posses simply by using the name “World”.
The bizarre belief that has been adopted by too many that international bodies no matter how they are set up are superior to domestic decision making.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Happy all fools day to those engaged in todays nonsense stories. Sadly in this modern age it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between official government policy and nonsense.
Why does Ed Miliband suddenly come to mind?
Aha, it seems that global warming also increases drug abuse:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11277026/
Increasing drug abuse is directly caused by the Trans-Reality Alarmists scaring the shit out of people. It the kids are going to die in the next 24 years, then why not start the party now?
That paper calls it climate change but everything addressed is weather.
The DEI infusion into the medical community over the last few decades has resulted in a far less qualified overall medical community than was the case a generation ago. It seems like the least qualified of the bunch tend to go into administration rather than actual treatment, which is good, but that leaves this huge pile of crazy policies and regulations that focus on anything but effective health care.
Show us the bodies
Redge:
Google’s Gemini query results for Global Deaths as of 4/2/26:
61-63 million/year, which is a 7.8/1000 death rate despite a growing population.
This down from 20/1000 in 1950.
All thanks to global warming! [ sarc/ … but there is likely some truth to this! ]
Also temperature related illnesses causing death estimates of 7.5 – 9.4% of all deaths/yr:
Cold related deaths ~ 4.5 Million [~9x that of heat related]
Heat related deaths ~ 490-546 Thousand
Bonus stat:
Disaster related deaths: 0.07% [floods, storms, earthquakes; not just weather]
Note if you add the Our World in Data stat of 3-4M /yr who die of indoor air pollution [mainly those cooking & heating with wood, crop residue & dried dung; mostly women & kids who
lack electricity or fossil fuels] to the above you get to ~ 1/2 of the WHO number.
Virtue signalling is quite sufficient to satisfy the average Climate Alarmist and is faster, cheaper and less damaging to the environment than any attempt to alter the weather or climate.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) lists climate change as the single biggest health threat facing humanity”.
WTF? No, it’s heart disease due to garbage food and lack of exercise. Along with booze and tobacco.
Well, then consider that warmer weather means more cookouts means more garbage food, lack of exercise, more booze, and more tobacco.
Not to mention burns, stubbed toes, tripping over chairs, chlorine in the eyes (pool), sunburn, and so on.
So I have proven that climate change is the single biggest health threat. Right? 😉
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The Global Warming Potential nonsense is a colossal example of disinformation.
Google AI says:
In [an] idealized, no-feedback scenario, a doubling of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O)
would result in a global warming response of approximately 0.2°C to 0.26°C.
______________________________________________________________________
And with information from NOAA’s Nitrous Oxide page and some arithmetic it’s easy to
derive a value of about 0.05C° by 2100 for global warming caused by nitrous oxide.
I happily, so far, work with N2O on a fairly regular basis. I don’t mind leaks at all. 🙂
I just want to point out that in a pressurized cylinder, N2O is a condensed liquid. So, a small cylinder actually holds a lot of gas, which makes them a convenient source.
With regard to reactivity, many forget that N2O is actually an oxidizer at elevated temperature. Therefore, it’s important to keep it away from combustible materials in elevated temperature situations.
Lastly, N2O will eventually migrate to the upper atmosphere where it will decompose. Reactive O atoms are formed and subsequent reactions, which might not be beneficial occur.
Nitrous oxide is combined in a 50/50 ratio with oxygen in anaesthesia, trade name Entonox. Without the oxygen the patient would suffocate. Pure nitrous oxide is used in commercial kitchens to create “instant” whipped cream. Entonox is not only used in obstetrics but in minor injury units and dentistry. Nitrous oxide may or may not be a potent greenhouse gas compared with carbon dioxide, which may or may not be a greenhouse gas, but I would suggest that its presence in the atmosphere is significantly less than carbon dioxide. This appears to be virtue signalling, as the benefits of Entonox significantly outweigh any possible harm.
“Nitrous oxide may or may not be a potent greenhouse gas . . . “
______________________________________________________
In the convoluted formula created by Sir John Houghton it is, 265 – 273 times more potent compared to CO2. If you use his silly formula to compare airplanes, a Piper Cub turns out to be about 80 times more powerful than a Boeing 747 as it will fly 80 times farther on a gallon of gas than a 747. Yes, it’s that dumb.
N2O “was a potent greenhouse gas, 300 times stronger than carbon dioxide.”
On a per molecule basis, it is 265.
https://emerginginvestigators.org/articles/22-022/pdf#:~:text=Nitrous%20oxide%20is%20a%20colorless,greenhouse%20gas%20emissions%20(6).
CO2 is ~ 425 parts per million in the atmosphere
N2O is ~ 337 parts per billion in the atmosphere
In the atmosphere, N2O is 0.3 times CO2 for whatever “greenhouse gas” is alleged to do.
Want to reduce use of various gases for anesthetics, begin with those pushing this idiotic idea, and THEIR family members. See how fast this moronic idea vanishes.
And as for medical waste and metals/precious metals, instruments come in sealed packs and once opened, even if only one of the several pieces in it is used, whole pack goes in the trash. How gawdamned stupid is that? And electronics/components, hospitals and stand alone doctors offices throw away piles of them and they all have various metals/precious metals inside. Right in the trash they go!
“environmentalism” has become the most environment damaging segment of human society hands down.
Statistically, the Climate Boogeyman is not capable of causing people’s deaths, or in fact of causing anything except for people, organizations, and governments to do dumb things, which can, in fact have harmful results. But, the Climate Industrial Complex and its paid and/or brainwashed supporters want everyone to believe otherwise. To their shock and dismay, it is now all crumbling and crashing now. Boo-hoo-hoo.
The Qld health dept bureaucrats are not the best crew at putting new systems
in place.
They blew $1.25 BILLION on a payroll system that was supposed to cost $1.2 million, and even after all that, the new $2.5 billion version couldn’t produce pays for employees.
But what the hell, it’s only taxpayers’ dough . . .
Decades ago my dentist replaced a gold crown.
Got $26 from local jeweler.
Todays its worth would be approaching $5000, depending on how many decades ago it was.
Gold dust is present in and around coal seams. In the 19th Century in Britain, a few “experts” made a tidy sum by convincing deep-shaft colliery owners to pay them to recover the gold from the vast heaps of waste, the result of hewing coal.
Odd to report – the value of the tiny amount of gold ever recovered was vastly exceeded by the cost of recovering it.
As ever the Prime Question for any scheme is: at what cost?
That is my question too.
Most medical waste is handled as hazardous.
Fire (or extreme heat) kills almost everything.
So the question is, what is the potential value of those precious metals, etc., versus the cost of recovery.
I am all for recycling.
The planet, as abundant as it is, is still a stock limited Kmart.
Best we learn to efficiently recycle now.
Placing bets on asteroid mining is too risky given what we know today.
No…nothing is stronger than CO2.
This is so stupid I don’t know what to say except all used materials should be disposed of or recycled in a reasonable manner. Greenhouse gas doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it. Yet another black eye for the highly educated community.
If decades of the Most Equal medicine steadily rolling into cesspit didn’t lead to this in USA, why do you expect this on Airstrip One?
Soon they will have only one medical procedure left for the proles: starving while under morphine (forgot its name).
But since education can only build on what exists and selection can only work with what exists, and starts at the ground level, and since the oligarchy, ahem, habitually delegates most mental activity, well… they are about to see medicine for their ruling class sliding to the level where medicine for proles was back in 1970s or so.