The Veterinary Medical Centre is making some changes in an attempt to reduce the amount of waste we contribute to landfill and clinical waste. There are already several initiatives in place within the hospitals that reduce the VMCs carbon footprint. The cardboard box recycling program where boxes collected get shredded and turned into bedding for the Equine Hospital is an amazing success. Once used as bedding, the cardboard and contaminants are disposed of as organic waste and composted.
The recent removal of under desk bins (as seen throughout the school) has coincided with the introduction of organic waste disposal of hand towels in bathrooms. As the paper towel from bathroom areas is considered "clean" (not contaminated with chemicals from cleaning products), the P&F team are able to collect the hand towel and dispose of it in an organics waste composting bin. This is expected to reduce a significant amount of general waste that goes to landfill from the hospital alone - with the hope that other areas within the school will be able to implement this too.
The next step for the hospitals waste reduction is to separate soft plastics and paper/cardboard from our consumables packaging. Packaging such as sterile wraps, bandaging packaging and syringe/needle packets are able to be separated into paper and soft plastic recycling. This again will significantly reduce the amount of clinical waste that requires incineration and comes at significant cost to the University.
We're excited to see the reduction in waste across the hospitals and encourage everyone to think of ways to reduce waste in their areas of work!
