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Given Medicare’s addition of several orthopedic procedures to its fee schedule, an increasingly graying population and a post-COVID effect that has predisposed...
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By: , Holly Sousa, Linda Huet
Published: 10/10/2007
If your ORs produced 500,000 pounds of waste last year, you probably spent about $25,000 to dispose of it. That's twice what it need be, and not because you didn't get the best deal with the trash hauler, but because you weren't environmentally responsible enough. Here's how two activities - converting red-bag waste into clear-bag waste and recycling clear-bag waste - can save your facility thousands of dollars.
Red bag to clear bag
Our hospital generates more than 6,000 tons (that's 12 million pounds) of waste each year. Our 42 ORs were responsible for about 30 percent (788,000 pounds) of it. You can sterilize and shred much of what would otherwise be regulated medical waste to dispose of it as clear-bag waste, which usually costs at least five times less per pound to dispose of than red-bag waste (about 5 cents per pound versus about 30 cents per pound). Of course, you can't recycle this converted medical waste, but you'll save big on disposal costs, because this processed waste is safe to dispose of in a landfill.
Here at Brigham and Women's Hospital, we're lucky enough to have a service center that works with environmental services to sterilize our regulated medical waste. That department ensures our regulated medical waste meets the requirements that let it be accepted for disposal in a landfill:
Now, if you wanted to send regulated medical or chemical waste to an incinerator instead, you'd have to place all waste in rigid, leak-resistant containers and label it with the facility's name, address and phone number. You must label untreated waste with the international biohazard symbol. It must then travel with an infectious waste manifest.
A sorted affair
Surgical services produces the largest percentage of hospital waste, consisting generally of solid waste including paper, metal, glass and plastic, which makes up the largest portion of a healthcare facility's waste - 70 to 80 percent. About half a facility's solid waste is paper and cardboard, which can be easily reduced and recycled.[1]
Not Recycling? |
Hospitals produce more than 2 million tons (that's 4 billion pounds) of waste annually. That works out to about 6,000 tons each day, and the environmental impact is steep:
- Holly C. Sousa, RN, and Linda Huet, RN
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Know Your Waste Streams |
A waste stream is the flow of discarded materials and fluids that eventually return to the land, water system or air. There are four such streams, as defined by Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (known more commonly as H2E):
- Holly C. Sousa, RN, and Linda Huet, RN |
Much of what gets tossed into clear bags is recyclable: paper, cardboard, plastic packaging from sterile supplies and so forth. Adding recycle bins to your facility can make a huge difference. Here are simple steps to launch a recycling campaign.
On the Web |
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A small FYI: No. 1 and No. 2 plastic represent the largest volume of plastic in the OR. They're used for packaging items such as cement systems, staplers and reloads, to name only a few.
Doing your part
AORN calls for nurses to conserve supplies, reprocess where possible and recycle in its 2006 position statement on environmental responsibility. The Ameri-can Hospital Association and EPA have joined to form H2E or Hospitals for a Healthy Environ-ment and the movement is picking up momentum. Further, more states are cracking down on institutions that discard of cardboard rather than recycling it. Professionally, ethically, monetarily and practically, you've every reason to get involved and start making a difference.
Thinking Outside the Box (Literally) |
Wouldn't it be great if you had less waste to dispose of to begin with? At least one manufacturer is pitching in on that front: Kimberly-Clark has reconfigured packaging for its new Sterling Nitrile, and the changes can reduce exam glove and packaging waste disposal costs for your facility by more than 39 percent on average, says the company.
"Just from a cost-savings perspective, if you can throw out more than 20 tons less trash per year just by switching gloves, depending on your per-pound rate, you can see a big reduction in spending on disposal," says Lon Taylor, a global product manager for Kimberly-Clark's infection control business.
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References
1. Fenwich R. American Hospital Association Conference on Hospitals and the Environment, 1991.
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