November 21, 2009
UTNE READER

Clean, Green Bedpans

March-April 2009
by Staff, Utne Reader 
Clean Hospital
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image by Gety Images
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The irony is inescapable: Hospitals, dedicated to healing, are often hotbeds of toxic chemicals that wreak havoc on both patients’ and employees’ health. And the massive stream of trash—an estimated 4 billion pounds a year—that flows from U.S. hospitals is anything but healthy for the environment.

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Baltimore’s Urbanite (Oct. 2008) reports that nurses nearly top the charts when it comes to occupational asthma rates. That’s one reason for organizations like Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, an international group whose Maryland members are switching to nontoxic floor cleaners, eliminating pesticides, establishing local food programs, and instituting greener purchasing policies. Johns Hopkins’ innovative rotoclave, a steam-heated sterilization machine, transforms tons of infectious medical waste into shredded bits safe for landfill deposit, and it’s far greener than incinerating.

Hospitals can’t afford not to clean up, says a former executive director of Hospitals for a Healthy Environment: “Waste is not an inevitable result of production, but a measure of inefficiency.”

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