Zero Waste Healthcare
With more than 6,000 acute care hospitals in the United States, the healthcare sector has a massive environmental footprint. To address this, more and more healthcare systems are focusing on sustainability to improve environmental performance while also realizing cost savings.
Materials management is one area where many hospital systems have room to improve their current practices and incorporate sustainable solutions. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities in the United States generate an estimated 14,000 tons of waste per day, which amounts to more than 5.1 million tons of waste each year.
Healthcare waste is complex due to the estimated 15 percent of materials sent to regulated waste streams such as medical waste and hazardous waste. Regulated materials can cost 5–20 times as much as solid waste to dispose of, so reducing the amount of regulated waste generated saves money while also improving compliance.
Much of the remaining 85 percent of hospital waste is disposed of as trash and sent to landfills or incinerators. There are many strategies that hospitals can implement and tools they can use to improve their materials management programs to deliver sizable cost savings in addition to significant environmental and social benefits. Healthcare's specialty in the careful management of waste materials makes the sector especially well-positioned to adopt targeted, innovative waste reduction and recycling initiatives.
To improve the cost effectiveness and sustainability of their materials management programs, some hospitals are striving toward a goal of “Zero Waste,” a philosophy that encourages the redesign of products and materials such that all materials are reused or recycled and nothing is sent to landfills or incinerators.
In pursuit of Zero Waste goals, healthcare organizations implement waste diversion initiatives—those that divert waste away from landfills and incinerators. Waste diversion can include waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting activities. Waste reduction, or source reduction, focuses on eliminating waste before it’s ever created. While recycling and composting are important downstream waste diversion activities, the ultimate goal is waste reduction. Reducing the use of nonrecyclable materials, replacing disposable materials and products with reusable options, and reducing packaging are all examples of waste reduction strategies.
For hospitals, pursuing Zero Waste means maximizing waste reduction efforts, minimizing the amount of waste sent to regulated waste streams, and diverting whatever materials remain through management strategies like recycling and composting.
What are the Benefits of Pursuing Zero Waste?
Cost savings – Acute care hospitals in the United States spend an estimated $10 billion annually in waste disposal costs. Effective materials management practices that focus on waste minimization offer opportunities for cost savings in supply chain and disposal expenses that can far outweigh the initial investments. Estimates suggest opportunities for savings of up to 40–70 percent of waste disposal costs, representing $4–7 billion in savings for the healthcare industry overall.
Resource conservation – The sheer volume of resources used in the healthcare setting drives environmental impacts and the high cost of care. Source reduction, recycling and reuse make it so that fewer raw materials are needed to produce the products that hospitals procure. The National Health Service (NHS) greenhouse gas inventory shows that 60% of the healthcare industry’s greenhouse gas emissions are related to purchasing, and reducing the need for raw materials extraction can greatly reduce this.
Reducing plastic waste – Single-use plastics are a major component of the healthcare supply chain, with as much as 25 percent of hospital waste composed of plastic packaging and products. Single-use plastics are carbon intensive, contain dangerous chemicals, take hundreds of years to break down in the environment, and are not recycled at high rates. Actions that eliminate single-use plastics from the supply stream can significantly reduce plastic waste and help protect environmental quality.
Improving public health – From manufacturing the products used in healthcare to transporting and processing end-of-life waste, emission of greenhouse gases and other pollutants occurs throughout the product life cycle. Those living close to waste processing facilities are often exposed to high and sometimes harmful levels of pollutants, so efforts to minimize waste can lead to improvements in public health.
Improving health and safety – Effective materials management programs reduce the total volume of materials moving through the system. This benefits infection control, decreases clutter, and benefits safety and quality. Selecting safe and sustainable materials management options also protects people from hazards when collecting, storing, transporting, and disposing of waste.
There’s more to come in our next blog, where we’ll elaborate on specific actions healthcare organizations can take to minimize waste and improve their materials management programs.
