Climate Change and Inhalers

Question: What’s the impact on greenhouse emissions from inhalers prescribed in Orcades Practice?

Answer using data from NICE:

• pMDI have 200-800g CO2 equivalence per dose (2 puffs) - newer ones less, older ones more (so I have taken 500g as the mean per dose (2 puffs))
• On average 9 car miles releases 2610g CO2
• So 1 dose (2 puffs) has the same effect (by and large, generally speaking) as driving a petrol car 1.72 miles

Plugging those figures into our prescribing history, and ignoring DPI (which are very much less of a problem) gives:

More than a quarter of a million miles a year or thereabouts (c 70 tonnes of CO2 equivalent).

Iain Cromarty

14 October 21