Use fewer medicine cups first, then replace the rest

Why start with fewer?

Updated 10 October 2026.

A medicine cup lasts a few seconds. The nurse puts the tablets in, the patient takes them and the cup goes in the bin. That happens several times a day, for every patient. The numbers add up quickly.

A single hospital can easily throw away 300,000 plastic medicine cups a year. Estimate (details and source) Care organisation Amstelring used 629,000 plastic medicine cups in a year, for about 1,500 residents. That is just over one cup per resident a day. Source (details and source) How we add these numbers up for Dutch healthcare as a whole is explained in our market analysis. See the market analysis

Every cup you do not use does not have to be made, transported or incinerated. A plastic medicine cup has a footprint of about 11.2 g CO₂-eq; a paper one about 1.5 g. Source (details and source) A cup you leave out saves its entire footprint. No other material comes close to that. Not even our own cup.

Step 1. Use fewer cups

The Dutch platform Samen de zorg vergroenen helps care organisations work more sustainably. For wards it has an approach to using fewer medicine cups. Samen de zorg vergroenen advises wards to use fewer medicine cups by assigning a cup to one patient and reusing it. Reuse is not suitable for liquid medicines or crushed medication. Source (details and source) We think that is a good first step and recommend that every ward starts there.

How do you go about it on the ward? A few ideas, partly from the same approach by Samen de zorg vergroenen.

• One cup per patient. The cup stays in the room and lasts the whole stay, for the tablets of every round.
• Out of sight. Keep the stock of cups in the medication trolley instead of in the open on the counter. A note in the old spot helps people remember.
• Pharmacy pouches. Some organisations receive medicines in pouches from the pharmacy, one per administration time. A cup is then often not needed.
• Measure. Check your purchasing data for how many cups your ward uses, before and after the change. That shows you what it achieves.

Always discuss a change like this with the people responsible for medication safety and infection prevention. They know what works on your ward.

Where reducing stops

Doing without cups entirely is often not possible. At certain moments a clean disposable cup is simply needed.

• For medicines in a liquid or syrup.
• For crushed medication, for example for patients who have difficulty swallowing.
• When reuse does not fit hygiene requirements, for example for patients in isolation.

For those cups the question is not whether you use them, but what they are made of.