Sherwood Forest Hospitals commended for radically reducing and reusing waste

Posted Monday, November 26, 2018 10:47 AM

Sherwood Forest Hospitals commended for radically reducing and reusing waste

Sherwood Forest Hospitals has been commended for the way the Trust manages its waste after winning a Sustainable Health and Care Award for Waste and Resource management.

The national awards highlight and celebrate the fantastic sustainable development work across the NHS, social care and public sector.

The Trust was recognised for its ground breaking work in waste management, which began in 2014 when the Trust, working alongside partners Skanska, began analysing and improving the Trust’s waste management, which involved auditing more than 127,000 waste bins, looking at their location, how they were being used and how staff could be better trained in waste management.

Since the programme began the Trust has shown vast improvements in its waste management, with more than 3600 staff being trained in waste management, resulting in zero amount of domestic waste going to landfill. Domestic waste is now split into refuse derived fuel (RDF) and dry mixed recycling (DMR). 

This year, 507.511 tonnes have been sent offsite as RDF waste and 128.339 tonnes has been sent successfully as DMR. The Trust also bales cardboard, which has resulted in 72.16 tonnes being reused, whilst metal is also segregated with 28.6 tonnes being reused this year. 

The Trust also operates a re-purposing programme that provides opportunity for the reuse of unwanted furniture, which reduces the disposal costs. A furniture repair programme has also been set up, which can deliver savings of £30k - £40k per year against buying new furniture. To date 40 tonnes of furniture has been diverted to two charities. Over 1000 pairs of crutches, various walking frames, beds and toilet aids have been shipped to Syria and these will then be distributed amongst Atmeh and Balyoun Hospitals.

Environment and Sustainability Programme Manager for the Trust, Julie Dennis said: “I am delighted that we have been recognised at these national awards. We really have looked at every waste stream across the board to see what we could change and improve. From clinical waste to confidential waste, we have managed to reduce our waste drastically whilst also ensuring that staff are more aware of our waste management processes. This has resulted in improving our compliance rating by 60%.

“I would like to say thank you to our partners Skanska and our staff who have worked really hard to roll this out across the Trust and maintain our recycling and waste efforts, the project has showed real teamwork.”

The award was presented by Professor Lord Robert Winston at the Sustainable Health and Care Awards and gala dinner at the Edgbaston Stadium, Birmingham on 21 November.

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