Christiana Care recycling efforts reach milestone

Christiana Care now recycles 25 percent of all waste that it produces.

“Efforts in all parts of the health system — Environmental Services, Perioperative Services, Heart and Vascular Health, Design and Construction, Food and Nutrition plus offices — have enabled us to surpass this milestone and sustain our efforts,”  said Bob Mulrooney, vice president of Facilities and Services. He credits the work of “green champions” throughout the health system and the efforts of the Environmental Stewardship Committee, which he chairs, a multidisciplinary group of clinicians, administrators and operations manager. “Their creative ideas, study, planning and aggressive implementation made this possible,” he said.

On Earth Day, April 22, the committee held a special event in which bags of trash from grey cans were randomly collected from clinical and administrative units throughout Christiana Hospital and dissected to identify items that could have been recycled but were thrown away. Jason Funyak, director of Environmental Services, said that 15 percent of the clinical waste and 20 percent of administrative waste could have been recycled.

“Cardboard glove boxes, drinking cups and pink pans can all be recycled,” Funyak said. “All office paper, envelopes and soda bottles can be recycled.” He recommends that everyone look to the blue and green recycling bins throughout the campus before throwing anything in the grey trashcans.

Mulrooney and committee members are setting their sights on new environmental stewardship milestones. “If we can get to 25 percent recycled waste and we know that 10 to 20 percent of all other trash could be recycled, we can get to 30 percent or even 35 percent recycled waste,” he said. He welcomes new ideas from staff or the community on ways to help Christiana Care continue to recycle more; e-mail  suggestions to rmulrooney@christianacare.org.