ST. PAUL – Before a patient rolls into the operating room for surgery, the sterile instruments arrive on a tray covered in a spongy blue plastic known as "blue wrap." Hospitals go through tons of the ...

Everyone who works in a hospital operating room knows what a surgical tray wrap is. It's the thick, waterproof stuff that keeps surgical instruments sterile, and once it's used, it's thrown away.

When compared to rigid containers, wrapped instrument trays were better at preventing bacterial ingress into a sterilized tray, according to a study in the American Journal of Infection Control.

The benefits of sealed sterilization containers for surgical instruments have been documented extensively in the medical literature. However, not all containerized solutions use the same technology.