<p>Breaking the 25% Recycling Ceiling With Metro Hospital and Cleveland Clinic Sharing Call Date: August 5, 2011</p><p>Janet Brown – Moderated, Practice Greenhealth - [email protected] </p><p>Speakers on this call: Alison Waske, Sustainable Business Officer, Metro Hospital and Chris Parkinson, Project Coordinator for Healthy Operations, Cleveland Clinic</p><p>Attached: PDF power points</p><p>Why 25%? -- Practice Greenhealth’s top award – the environmental leadership award – has a minimum requirement of a 25% recycling rate. This minimum requirement results in a 25% recycling goal for most of our hospitals. The average from our 2010 benchmark report for our environmental leadership award winners was 36%. Recycling is fantastic, but shouldn’t we celebrate waste prevention and lower recycling rates as well? We are looking into this and plan on having an either or scoring for awards, where minimum requirements will be the recycling rate but also a total waste generated per adjusted patient day or staffed bed. We are still working out those details.</p><p>Recycling Tips:</p><p> Identify the right partners – solid relationships, site visits, documentation, quality assurance protocol, education and formal policies. The right partner is everything.</p><p> Education, Signage, New Employee and Departmental training – a bin with no sign is trouble. Big trouble.</p><p> Monitor – make regular rounds and re educate, where necessary.</p><p> Make it simple – single stream works well but be creative and look into solutions for pallets, food waste, HIPAA documents, equipment, toner cartridges, OR plastics and more.</p><p> Waste Prevention – Think about waste at the negotiation table and consider take back programs, reuse and other ways to prevent material altogether.</p><p> Review the PGH recycling page for more information and to read the Catholic Health Association’s grand funded report about the majority of donated material that remains un used in developing countries, even with the best of intentions.</p><p> Be Careful – just because someone says they’ll take it, make sure they are doing the right thing i.e. handling electronics and other potentially hazardous, infectious or confidential information legally and safely.</p><p> Put out those bins! Don’t be stingy with bins – the more the merrier.  Staffing – ensure timely pick up of bins, overflowing bins will lead to increased waste disposal.</p><p> Make if official – policies, written documentation, rounds are critical. </p><p> Go out to bid – To bale or not to bale, that is the question. Well, put your materials out to bid and ask for pricing in a variety of ways – in bales, in a compactor, in a toter and see what comes back. The less frequent the pickup, the lower the cost. (Consider listening to our past sharing call on Palomar Pomerado’s own HIPAA Shredding truck!)</p><p> Look to Practice Greenhealth’s awards application for guidance and standardization between recycling and diversion – take credit for both – but understand the difference.</p><p> Understand the true cost for the various waste categories. Both Metro and Cleveland clinic spoke of the cost per unit as invaluable as far as getting buy in from department heads. Clearly articulating the cost for recycling versus cost for waste disposal can help get top down support.</p><p> Track and Report – Take tracking of waste and recycling data very seriously. Get actual information where possible and use good estimates when weights are impossible. Get recognition through Practice Greenhealth’s Environmental Excellence Awards and local awards and competitions. Report out successes to staff and patients. Consider adding results into community benefit reporting or sustainability reporting.</p><p> Be Safe – educate recyclers about proper transport and handling of heavy recycling bins.</p><p> Go for Zero Waste – Don’t be satisfied with 10, 15 or 20% recycling – keep on looking for additional waste to prevent and recycle! Get creative!</p><p>A big thanks to Alison Waske and Chris Parkinson for great slides and presenting.</p><p>Participants: Metro Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, Catholic Health Care West, Advocate Health Care, Advocate Masonic, Fairview Medical Center, MA, Charles Cole, Harborview, Kaiser Permanente, Health Partners, Baptist Health, Palomar Pomerado, Seton Health Care (Ascension), St. Francis, Nebraska (CHI), Catholic Health, Buffalo, St. Mary’s Medical Center, Walla Walla, Washington Hospital, CA, University of Maryland Medical Center, Anna Gilmore Hall and Lin Hill of Practice Greenhealth. Moderated by Janet Brown</p><p>Respectfully Submitted;</p><p>Janet Brown Practice Greenhealth</p>