Preventing waste in the first place

Here are a few tips to reduce your household like waste:

• Work with your procurement teams to review and reduce packaging of non-medical supplies

• Encourage on site retailers and hospital canteens to donate surplus or unsold stock -for example have an employee fridge for products that they can eat or take home free of charge. Guidance is available on ‘How food businesses must dispose of food and former foodstuffs’ - (www.gov.uk).

• When serving food to patients, ensure portion sizes are appropriate for patients to avoid food waste. Allowing patients to order meals in advance may also reduce waste, ensuring they are able to choose food that they will eat.

• Purchase refillable or reusable products such as reusable cups, crockery, and utensils.

• Providing water fountains for staff and visitors could avoid using single use plastic bottles.

• Go paperless – promote online platforms where possible, encourage paperless offices.

• Monitor the waste generated and identity any streams that could be reduced, e.g. packaging waste, alternative recyclable materials.

• Investigate any trials being carried out in other hospital settings or consider implementing trials in your setting, e.g. moving towards reusable rather than single use aprons

• Investigate options for the reuse and refurbishment of electrical and other medical devices rather than recycling or disposal, e.g. walking aids

There may be some costs to make these changes initially but reducing your waste could reduce your waste disposal costs in the long run.