created the custom packs to find out if they had an alternative to
Styrofoam. They did and as a result of Ms. Barman's willingness to
ask, the packs began arriving with recyclable cardboard trays. "You
can actually feel empowered as the person who uses the product to
talk to the vendor selling it and say, 'How can we do this differently?'"
she says.
Make it easy. Every custom pack at Meriter comes in a plastic
bag, so Ms. Barman's team hangs the bags on hampers in the
OR as they open the pack's supplies. The team members toss the
recyclable items from the packs into the bags in which the packs
were shipped. It's full-circle recycling.
When done right, recycling becomes second nature. "We realized
recycling has to be easy to do," she says. "Eventually, staff will do it
without thinking. It's part of their muscle memory."
Creating awareness among staff is key. That mindset could pro-
duce more epiphanies like those experienced by Ms. Barman, who
challenges you to think differently about surgical waste: "When you
open something and don't use it and it's still clean, always try to
determine if there's a way to upcycle or recycle it."
— Joe Paone
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