Mónica Lisett Castaño Tovar was still a child when she observed how a bauxite mining operation polluted the Jamundi river in Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Awareness about the environmental damage caused by the mine left a deep impression on her.

Annie and her colleague Patricia are not doctors, nurses or specialised medical staff. They are just two ordinary Zambian women who, without fanfare, are uniquely helping to reduce medical waste in their communities by doing the work traditionally reserved for men.

With over 20 years of experience in the health sector and having lived in the Amazon region for many years, Valdirene Araújo searches for products less toxic to people and safer for the environment.

The strict COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns resulted in decreased food supplies for health care workers, the nearby communities, and local farmers. Mental health Hospital changed this through a small-scale organic vegetable farm.

The large amounts of Personal Protective Equipment waste became one of the most defining and distressing images of the COVID-19 pandemic. St. Paul’s Hospital overcomes this challenge while reducing its environmental footprint.

Climate change harms public health, and even health professionals lack specialised knowledge in this area. Taras and his team actively change this through online trainings and tools.

Incinerator operators like Nkhata needed to keep working to put food on the table even if burning mercury-containing medical devices made him choke and cough up blood. Then, Nkhata became an autoclave operator.

When Azeeza discovered, following an inventory assessment, that there were still mercury devices in the Sizwe Tropical Diseases Hospital, she decided to launch a phase-out campaign with the help of hospital staff.

Located in the rural Garden Route District, the hospital had to make a trip of 450 kilometres five times a week to transport infectious medical waste for processing. Michael issued an urgent call to action for hospitals to move away from medical waste incinerators and engage in sustainable waste disposal models.

The current COVID-19 pandemic placed unprecedented stress on providing health care services to the most vulnerable individuals. Thanks to good mobilisation and coordinated action between medical institutions, civil society and mobile clinics, people living with HIV could access life-saving medicines during the lockdown and further periods of restrictions.

Recycling of health care plastics is not a standard practice in Tanzania. Hussein and Miriam are committed to solving this issue by identifying the potential challenges of recycling plastics and improving health procurement practices.

To address the adverse effects of the health sector on the environment, the hospital started reducing plastic waste by adopting environmentally-friendly green procurement procedures.

For Vincy, nurses play a vital role in advocating, educating and leading action to mitigate risks associated with climate change. By reducing the negative environmental impacts caused by the health care system in which nurses work, she believes in achieving big changes.

A few years ago, Pankaj was not familiar with sustainable health procurement. Today, he actively encourages suppliers to reduce environmental impact throughout their supply chains and educates users and suppliers about environmentally responsible procurement choices.