Thinking Outside the Box: Exploring the Kaiser Permanente and Cleveland Clinic Partnership Programs

Sep 3, 2018 11:45 AM ET
Exploring the Kaiser Permanente and Cleveland Clinic Partnership Programs

Thinking Outside the Box: Exploring the Kaiser Permanente and Cleveland Clinic …

Hospitals search for ways to reduce the amount of waste they send to the landfill, discarding blue wrap, trays, Tyvek and other materials as “clean” medical waste in large volumes. However, oftentimes the closed system of a hospital or operating room presents a unique opportunity for collection, segregation and recycling of these materials.

HPRC identified two recycling partnerships (Kaiser Permanente with Goodwill Industries and the Cleveland Clinic’s with Rumpke Recycling and Buckeye Industries), and put together best practices for implementing a program like this, as well as a deeper dive into the specifics of each hospital’s partnership, their methods for recycling and transportation, and the lessons learned.

Read more about HPRC’s study of these recycling programs.

About HPRC

HPRC is a private technical coalition of industry peers across healthcare, recycling and waste management industries seeking to improve recyclability of plastic products within healthcare. HPRC is made up of brand leading and globally recognized members including Baxter, BD, DuPont, Eastman Chemical Company, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Nelipak Healthcare Packaging, Ravago Recycling Group, and ThermoFisher Scientific. The council convenes biannually at meetings hosted by an HPRC member that regularly include stakeholder engagement events and facility tours to further learning and knowledge sharing opportunities through first-hand demonstration of best practices in sustainable product and packaging design and recycling processes. For more information, visit http://www.hprc.org and follow HPRC on LinkedIn.