Hospitals and medical practices produce a lot of waste. Indeed medical facilities generate more than 4 billion pounds of garbage every year, with the majority of the waste stemming from operating and delivery rooms. While healthcare facilities will always create a significant amount of garbage, eco-conscious medical providers can make several small adjustments to make their practices kinder to Mother Earth.
Making a medical practice more sustainable means rethinking current waste disposal methods while still meeting governmental guidelines for the management of biohazardous waste. Also, creating a sustainable practice involves implementing common sense solutions to reduce non-hazardous waste by reusing materials. Consider the following when redesigning medical practices to make them more eco-friendly.
Cutting Back on Single-Use Devices
Single-use devices (SUDs) make up a sizable percentage of many medical facilities’ waste. Yet facilities can recycle many SUDs, saving the planet while at the same time saving the practice a significant sum of money. For example, the San Diego branch of Kaiser Permanente switched to recycling SUDs and in doing so saved approximately $300,000 in just one year.
Read more at the Environmental Magazine
