As with all pollution problems, real solutions must begin at the source. Medical practitioners simply use too many disposable items. This is a complex problem. If a hospital offers you a stainless steel bedpan, then pays a staff member to empty it, sterilize it and put it back in the supply closet, they can't easily tally the expense and charge you the way they can when they sell you a plastic disposable bedpan and throw it out after one use. The patient buys each throw-away and pays for it, itemized on the bill.
Hospitals can mark up each item and make a small profit.
In this sense, disposables are good business. The plastics people are especially good at pushing their products and they've got the medical world convinced that plastic throw-aways are modern, steel reusables are not. To handle the medical waste problem, the people who create medical waste need to examine their daily routines, item by item, procedure by procedure, and ask themselves why they use one product instead of another. If they choose to use plastic items, they should require plastics that contain no cadmium, no lead, and no chlorine. These are common toxins in plastics and they make waste disposal dangerous.