Environmental Stewardship team recycles ORs’ ‘blue wrap’

Environmental Stewardship team recycles ORs’ ‘blue wrap’

woman carrying trash bags
In a year, Wilmington Hospital recycles as many as 10,000 bags of sterile blue wrap, a material used in operating rooms.
March 2, 2012
woman carrying trash bags
In a year, Wilmington Hospital recycles as many as 10,000 bags of sterile blue wrap, a material used in operating rooms.

Operating rooms at Wilmington Hospital recycle enough blue wrap — a polypropylene material used to wrap surgical instruments for sterilization — to fill 24 patient rooms each year.

That’s a new finding by the Environmental Stewardship Committee, a multi-departmental team of health system employees committed to reducing and recycling waste.

Started in late 2011, the blue wrap recycling program at Wilmington Hospital diverts about 40 of the 40-gallon clear trash bags on 250 operating days each year. That’s as many as 10,000 bags kept out of the landfill and fed to recycling plants annually.

“This project was a no-brainer,” says Environmental Services Director Jason Funyak. “Blue wrap is sanitary, never soiled. It makes sense to recycle this stream of waste.”

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