Recycling is going green's low-hanging fruit, but the seemingly minor act of tossing waste into the correct bin results in significant economic and environmental savings. As you'll see, the key to your success will be getting your staff to think green every time they pass a blue recycling bin.
6 Tips for Recycling Success |
1. Force a choice. Give staff the opportunity to recycle wherever waste is generated. When your techs open cases, they need to face a literal choice when deciding where to toss paper and plastic supply wrappings. Place recycling bins next to each trash receptacle to reinforce the idea. 2. Test, then toss. Roll out your new recycling program in phases. Target busy ORs at first — we conducted our dry run in ENT and urology rooms — because those areas produce a great deal of waste and demand fast-paced room turnovers. Watch both factors play against each other to see how the program works and to determine the needed changes before it's ready for prime time. Test the program over several weeks — ours ran for 6 — so different techs and circulators have the chance to rotate through the trial rooms. They'll see firsthand how the recycling program works and share their experiences with co-workers over lunch or in the hall, spreading a sense of expectancy and excitement throughout the entire surgical staff. 3. Bag the answers. Questions are an inevitable part of implementing any program across several specialties. To help smooth the transition, designate 1 recycling receptacle as the "Question Bin." That's where staff can toss the items they're not sure about. Empty the bin every couple weeks, then meet with your environmental services manager or the rep from your waste hauling service to determine which items are recyclable and which belong in the non-regulated waste stream. Take the questioned items to your next staff meeting to relay the findings. 4. Work the PR angle. Expect to debunk rumors started by naysayers who oppose your recycling efforts out of habit. One common myth we heard circulating through the hall: "All the waste ends up in the same place, regardless of what we do or where we put it." Give staff a tour of the recycling stream. Show them where you empty bins from the ORs; let them see the process and the separate dumpsters for themselves. It's likely that your staff will also express concerns about the recycling program's negative impact on case efficiencies. Your trial period should hopefully alleviate those fears, as those cycling through the testing rooms realize that segregating waste won't slow turnover times. 5. Provide for the providers. Our anesthesia providers disposed of all waste in red bags, even though much of the trash they generated was suited for clear bags. Placing clear bags on anesthesia carts is a simple step that will result in a significant reduction in red bag hauling costs. 6. Start at the beginning. Focusing solely on recycling waste in the OR ignores the steps you can take to eliminate wasteful purchases at the beginning of the supply chain. For example, when we changed prep solutions we were so consumed with collecting unused Betadine from surgical packs that we lost focus on the real issue: Instead of worrying about recycling the Betadine, why were we ordering it in the first place? Turns out we didn't need to, and worked with our hospital's purchasing staff to make the change. — Nicole Webel, MD, and Ti Refvem, RN |
Plant the seeds
The success of your recycling program will be tied to a bottom-up leadership model. It's important to find the people in your facility that want to make a difference in your environmental practices. Recruiting workers on the front line who are passionate about going green is far more effective than relying on surgeons or administrators to force change. Your ability to secure green reps in each level of your surgical team — circulators, scrub techs, pre-op/post-op nurses, charge nurses and environmental services — will make or break your recycling program.
Organize the green reps — we're looking into supplying them with green scrub caps so they're easily recognized on the floor — into a committee that meets monthly to discuss the most effective ways to roll out and sustain your recycling efforts. What's trash? What's medical waste? What is recyclable? How can you reclaim it? You'll develop your own answers to those questions based on the specific supplies you use, the procedures you perform and your staff's work patterns.
Cultivate growth
Staff will respond positively and attentively to your recycling system when their small successes are met with sincere gratitude and encouragement. Start by recognizing jobs well done, perhaps by placing a green star next to the names of top performing employees displayed in the staff lounge or a note written on a bulletin board. Commenting that you've noticed how full recycling bins have been when passing nurses in the hall is a simple and effective way to reinforce good behavior. Perhaps you can use some of the savings realized through your recycling program to buy staff an organic lunch or upgrade the furniture in the staff lounge. Regardless of how and when you do it, be sure staff know their efforts are appreciated.
A positive management approach also applies when you discover items placed in the wrong bin during routine checks — we call it "dumpster diving." Remove misplaced waste, place it in the correct receptacle and move on. Making a big deal of the mistake is a short-term fix; in the long run it will give staff the impression that your recycling program is a mandate from upper management. Peer pressure is much more effective than a stern reminder when trying to make a new concept stick.
Once you encourage staff to think about the waste your facility produces and how they can effect meaningful change with a few tweaks to their daily practice, they'll start to recognize the little things that can make a big difference in a grassroots effort. For example, our OR personnel wondered why rubber bands are used to wrap towels, gowns and other sterile items when a piece of tape would be just as effective. That kind of thinking is a by-product of encouraging staff to consider the amount of waste they produce, how supplies arrive in our facility and how they're disposed on the back end. Our green committee asked an employee to trace the rubber bands through the hospital's sourcing system to see where they originated from and what we needed to do to replace them.
Taming a Sea of Plastic |
The 27 ORs here at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Va., generate a huge amount of plastic waste: irrigation bottles, Foley catheter trays and the plastic packaging material that houses most everything we open. Of course, all this plastic is recyclable, but we had sorted it into clean or regulated medical waste and just sent all the clean waste to the landfill. A couple of 55-gallon recycling bins and a 30-day pilot recycling project changed all that. For 1 month, we asked all perioperative staff to put recyclable material in the 2 bins that we placed in our main 12-OR core. Twice a day, a volunteer took the full bins down to the loading dock. All that person had to do was put the bin on a trolley, wheel it to the elevator and then to the nearby loading dock. In the 30-day trial period, the OR recycled 12,000 gallons of waste. We've since recycle-readied all of our cores by adding 5 recycling bins. I emptied them yesterday and they're full again today. Good news. Recycling is such a small thing to do, but if everyone participates, it can have a major impact. — Kimberly M. Sutphin, MSN, RN Ms. Sutphin (kam7g@virginia.edu) is the OR clinical manager at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Va. |
Watch it spread
The surgical department is the largest source of waste within a healthcare facility, making it a great area to focus your recycling efforts. Your bottom line and your landfills will thank you. And your staff will come to work each day knowing their actions and decisions can make a difference in how large a footprint your facility makes in our world.