My Carbon Footprint: Tarzan and the case of the missing crutch

The NHS pledge to be the first net-zero national health service by 2040 is under serious threat if current ‘take-make-dispose’ practices aren’t changed, says Kate Hughes

If medical equipment could be more widely repaired and remanufactured it could reduce each item’s carbon footprint by up to 85 per cent (Shutterstock)

When your youngest child comes barrelling through the back door, ashen-faced and panting from running as hard as his little legs can go, the words you really, really don’t want to hear are “she’s broken her neck”.

I’ve never moved so fast. Or felt so sick while doing it. Apart from maybe the time I ran for the night bus after celebrating my 20th.

I can be flippant now because the sprint to his sister’s side at the bottom of the tree in the garden revealed that “neck” meant wrist, and “broken” turned out to be a bad sprain. Further investigation suggests she had attempted some sort of Tarzan-style dismount from a branch above her head. Way above her head.