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About Us
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Until now, medical examination gloves have always been single-use devices. The typical life cycle of a single-use medical examination glove, like those used in food processing, high technology, etc. has three stages: a glove (1) is manufactured in Asia, (2) travels half-way around the world to the end-user, (3) is used on average for 5 minutes and (4) is disposed of via incineration or in a landfill.
Moving gloves from Asia to America or Europe represents over 135,000 container loads per year or 370 containers per day that finish in our community landfills!
With glove use doubling every five to seven years, this is not sustainable with respect to waste, costs and carbon emissions.
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While not claiming sterility, conventional medical examination gloves are assumed to be clean, though studies have shown that they are microbiologically contaminated (Document 1 , Document 2 ) and contain a high level of endotoxins . This potentialy high contamination increases the risk of hospital-acquired-infections by introducing billions of undesired and potentially threatening CFU and endotoxins. Currently there exist only recommendations for the microbiological cleanliness for examination gloves, no regulations.
In addition to the issue of pre-use cleanliness, the presence of pinholes is also a consideration in single-use medical exam gloves. Though regulated for pinholes, medical examination gloves are still allowed to contain them (the AQL regulation differs by countries of usage) in the absence of any means to eliminate them completely; this situation is solved by the EcoGlove System.
Unsuspected pinholes and contamination are not sustainable in terms of Healthcare worker and Patient Safety.
Rising glove prices, due to rising raw material and energy costs, increasingly impact hospital budgets.
Growing examination glove usage, thanks to tightening hygiene rules and more universally accepted precautions, are however hurting the hospital budgets.
Glove waste management costs (15 to 30% of hospital waste volume) are also rising, a situation that is also solved by the EcoGlove System.
Thus there exists an unsustainable conflict between containing healthcare costs and maintaining the highest level of care.
These realities prompted EcoGlove to introduce the Tr@ce Re-usable Medical Glove which uniquely resolves each and every one of these concerns:
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About Us