Recycling is something that most of us try to do in some form or another at home. But what about at work? Medical facilities (both human and veterinary) produce a huge amount of waste. If we can try to implement recycling within the clinic, we can substantially reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. But how can we do this?
Let us look at an example of one particular clinic (this example is in Western Australia), and how they have set up recycling. Let us call it Clinic X.
There are a bank of bins along one wall of the prep room. Easily accessible from both the prep area, the kennels and the kitchen:
Paper and card – this is easily recyclable. Lots of business premises will have shared bins, and there is often a recycling bin for paper and card. Boxes that drug and consumable orders are delivered are returned to the wholesaler for reuse, as are icepacks.
Soft Plastic – soft plastics are separated from general waste – this includes the plastic fronts from sterilising pouches, plastic from syringe and needle packaging, sterile glove packaging – the list is endless! We just need to ensure there is no paper or labels included.
Syringes – Suez do a great syringe recycling program. The collection fees are really quite low, and they provide a bin for collecting the used syringes into. Clinic X has a small bin on the benchtop next to the sharps bin in both consult and prep room, where the used syringes are collected, and at several points through the day, this is emptied into the main syringe recycling bin.
Drip bags and tubing – both Suez and Provet offer drip bag and tubing recycling. Clinic X saves some of the empty drip bags for bandage boots. Some clinics will also save the drip tubing to use for endotracheal ties, but Clinic X feels that these are not stretchy enough to use as ties, and has decided to recycle them instead.
General recycling – all other recyclable materials are placed in another bin – drinks cans, milk containers etc are all washed and put into the general recycling bin.
Coffee pods – Nespresso has a coffee pod recycling scheme which Clinic X uses. They are also looking into reusable pods to reduce waste further.
Lids and bread tags – Lids from milk and soft drinks (and some other eligible lids), plus tags from bread and rolls, are washed and collected for charities – Lids for Kids/Greenbatch collect the lids, and Wheelchairs for Kids collect the bread tags.
Glass – most glass goes in the general recycling, and all vaccine and drug bottles go into the sharps containers as they mustn’t be put into general waste.
Anatomical waste – this should be placed into a bag in the freezer, which can then be collected for incineration. Clinic X has implemented this.
Food scraps – composting bins or Bokashi bins can take all food scraps.
So what is left for the general waste bin?
Soiled bedding, puppy pads, soiled disposable drapes, faecal/urinary/vomit waste from patients, soiled swabs and gloves (both surgical and examination).
It is amazing how much we can reduce waste in the veterinary clinic if we turn our mind to it! There are plenty of recycling schemes available to deal with a wide range of materials. Most of them are very affordable, and easy to access.
What do you do in your clinic? Do you have any other ideas on how to reduce waste?
