Over the past six days, while I have been spending an unfortunate amount of time at the hospital visiting my stepdad, I have also noticed an extraordinary amount of waste in every practice and every function.
It’s been mind-boggling (albeit nice and distracting too, to occasionally think about something else) but everything from all of the paper and disposable/single-use supplies, to unused but illuminated rooms, to plugged-in equipment with ’no one attached’, to the cafeteria (a haven for Styrofoam) all adds up. While some of the waste is hazardous and toxic, I was surprised to discover that 85% of the waste that exits hospitals is actually non-infectious waste. Now, there’s room for improvement …
U.S. Hospitals generate more than 2 million tons of solid waste per year… that’s 15 pounds of waste per patient every day. But I was also surprised to learn that 53% of the waste is actually paper!… now there’s an opportunity! Additional percentages (between 15-17% each) exist for food and plastics. Sounds like every hospital needs a big compost pile and a massive recycle bin! If the cafeterias alone would stop stocking Styrofoam and go back to reusable serveware and utensils, that savings alone would be amazing.
I’m sure the other issues are a lot more complicated than I’m making them and someone will take a shot at me for not knowing what I’m talking about, but that’s okay. Educate me. Because the way I look at it, there are approximately 6,000 hospitals in the alone and that a whoooole lotta trash…
There aren’t simple ways to select green hospitals (and often, in emergencies, you don’t really care), but if you’re in the healthcare industry, there are so many ways you can begin helping to create greener changes and that will hopefully come soon.
For now, dad’s getting quality care and I’m absolutely at peace with letting them create his 15 pounds per day.
hen he had the accident was made almost entirely of salvaged and reused parts… a plastic Miller Lite bottle was even converted into an overflow reservoir for one of the engine fluids! In his garage, coffee cans, pickle jars and plastic bottles are premium storage containers. T-shirts that have taken a beating from all of his mechanical work and “building” are turned into his garage rags. Milk jugs are turned into drip pans and the leather from an old jacket (that got torn) was given new life by becoming the seat of one of the motorcycles he built.
d never tell him how “green” he really is, because he would probably deny it 
but sorry Dad… all this reusing is SO GREEN!
Friday evening my stepdad was in a horrible car accident when someone pulled out in front of him while he was driving the convertible Model-T he had restored. He was ejected from the car and now lies in critical condition in an intensive care unit. He suffered a severe laceration that stretches from his eye across to the back of his head, bleeding on the brain, a crushed spleen (that was removed) and a collapsed lung. The most critical injury is now his lung because he suffers from underlying lung issues from all the years of hard work he put in at the local mill.
I am The Great Public Lights Caper!
table choice, but I’m quickly learning that there is a whole lot more to the story.
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