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Health

Thermometer Probe Covers

Pack of 100 covers

42
g
Total plastic weight

Each cover is worn for seconds, and because it has touched a patient it is treated as clinical waste rather than recyclable film.

0%
Recycle probability
80
Years to decompose
Thermometer Probe Covers

Material breakdown

2 components
  • PE covers36g
  • Dispenser box film6g
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Production footprint

Per unit
0.58L
Water to produce
0.131kWh
Electricity to produce

Estimated upstream manufacturing footprint per unit, based on resin LCA averages.

Lower-impact alternatives

  • Wipeable digital thermometer
    Disinfected between uses at home.
    0g
    plastic
  • Infrared forehead thermometer
    No contact, no cover needed.
    0g
    plastic
  • One thermometer per person
    Removes the hygiene reason for covers.
    0g
    plastic
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References for this item

Peer-reviewed studies and institutional reports behind the figures above.

  • Degradation Rates of Plastics in the Environment
    Chamas, A., Moon, H., Zheng, J., Qiu, Y., Tabassum, T., Jang, J. H., Abu-Omar, M., Scott, S. L. & Suh, S. (2020) · ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 8(9), 3494–3511

    Open-access review that harmonises plastic degradation studies into a specific surface degradation rate, giving half-lives from 58 years for an HDPE bottle to 1,200 years for thick HDPE pipe. Peer-reviewed basis for how our decomposition windows scale with wall thickness and format.

  • Ranking environmental degradation trends of plastic marine debris based on physical properties and molecular structure
    Min, K., Cuiffi, J. D. & Mathers, R. T. (2020) · Nature Communications, 11, 727

    Ranks PE, PP, PET, PS, PVC and nylon by measured degradation susceptibility and shows that thickness, crystallinity and additives shift estimated lifetimes by one to two orders of magnitude. Backs our practice of scaling persistence by format rather than by polymer alone.

  • Monitoring polymer degradation under different conditions in the marine environment
    Beltrán-Sanahuja, A., Casado-Coy, N., Simó-Cabrera, L. & Sanz-Lázaro, C. (2020) · Environmental Pollution, 259, 113836

    Field study exposing PET, LDPE, HDPE, PP and PS in seawater, sediment and beach sand for nine months; conventional polymers lost under a few percent of their mass. Direct measured evidence for the very slow marine degradation behind our long persistence windows.

  • Alteration and progressive degradation of plastic waste in a Polish operational landfill analysed over 60 years
    Redko, V., Wolska, L., Cieślak-Piotrowicz, A. et al. (2024) · Communications Earth & Environment, 5, 563

    Excavated polyethylene bags and film buried for up to six decades in a working landfill and found only partial surface oxidation, not disappearance. Real-world confirmation that landfilled film persists far beyond the lifetimes often quoted.

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