Benefits of switching from non-recycled paper products to 100% recycled

Solid waste reduction efforts are being made by continually removing items from the trash stream and diverting them to recycling.

The California Integrated Waste Management Board documents how the benefits of switching from non-recycled paper products to 100% recycled products yields the following additional savings:

NAPKINS and TOWELS

One hospital converted virgin napkins and towels to recycled content and the results were:

• 33.80 tons of recycled paper used
• 189,000 gallons of water saved
• 81 cubic yards of landfill space saved
• 110,700 kilowatts of energy saved
• 1,620.00 pounds of air pollutants saved

BLUE WRAP

Isolation of recyclable materials from an office or hospitals' various waste streams and observing strict guidelines have allowed one hospital, St. Mary's Medical Center, to develop a system over three years of collection, packaging, storing and shipping that has reduced over 85 % of their purchased "Blue Wrap" plastic that is used to protect sterilized or "clean" health care equipment without a single incident of contamination in the shipped material. 

All of this recycling was conducted within a footprint of less than 20 square feet including processing and storage.

Recycling of "Blue Wrap' is a huge opportunity for medical offices and facilities to reduce landfill, reduce their costs for disposable plastic supplies, and provide additional environmental benefits with no loss of quality in service.

Blue Wrap may not be the largest segment of the waste stream for hospitals, but it is a unifying product they all use; and by establishing networking opportunities with local governments, recyclers and haulers, other materials can be targeted. 

Blue Wrap purchasing for 2005 in a representative sample of 60 various sized facilities found that  424,563 pounds or 212 tons of non-reusable plastic was used.  Recyclers estimate that this represents 1/3 of the combined amount of blue wrap and stretch wrap for the facilities.

It's possible to achieve a 20% reduction in the volume of waste from surgical suites.  That's significant.