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urgery generates about one-fourth of all the waste a hospital
generates — from clear plastic to blue wrap to white card-
board — waste that inevitably ends up clogging a landfill
somewhere. But Maggie Tharp, BSN, RN, CNOR, says it
doesn't have to.
She would know. Earlier this year, Ms. Tharp and other team mem-
bers from Deaconess Hospital in Evansville, Ind., dreamed up an
inventive way to reduce the hospital's carbon footprint: a "clean-waste
recycling program" encompassing 29 operating rooms spread across 3
campuses.
"I was a naysayer before we started this, but it wasn't because I did-
n't believe in it," says Ms. Tharp, clinical educator of surgical services
ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP
How to Become a Green Machine
Environmentally conscious Deaconess Hospital finds value
in a recycling program aimed at "doing what's right."
• CLEANING UP Clean waste
from items opened during a
case gets placed in a special
blue container and hauled
away later for recycling.
Deaconess
Hospital