In an ongoing effort to expand recycling at CoxHealth, the Environmental Leadership Council recently announced that staff will now be able to recycle all paper via the locked bins located on patient floors and in various departments.
The bins, currently located near the transportation elevators in the main hospital, have long been used for some types of paper recycling. Now, through an agreement with Midwest Fiber, the bins will be able to accept any and all paper – everything from printouts to newsprint and glossy paper. The bins can also accept confidential paperwork without prior shredding.
“Everything in the bins is locked up and then shredded, so people can feel secure in putting things in there unshredded,” says Shana Tauai, co-chair of the Environmental Leadership Council.
While metal binding clips will need to be removed, stapled paper can be recycled with staples intact.
Midwest Fiber will continue to collect the bins regularly and Environmental Services director Ronnie Lightfoot says adjustments in the collection schedule will be made as need dictates.
“It will create some additional volume for the EVS team and we might have to accommodate some of the areas that do more paper handling with an additional bin or two,” Lightfoot says.
Tauai says she hopes the move will encourage employees to recycle and to think about waste reduction in general. She and Lightfoot say it’s important for employees to ask “do I really need to print this?”
“Using less paper in the first place helps even more than recycling,” Lightfoot says.
In other CoxHealth environmental updates:
• A plan is under way to remove the light bulbs in all vending machines on Cox campuses. Lightfoot says that at a similar-sized organization that change resulted in a $15,000 utility savings annually.
• Drury’s Students In Free Enterprise chapter is completing its analysis of CoxHealth’s carbon footprint and the results are expected soon.
• Tentative plans are under way to develop a recycling center at Cox South. Council leaders are working with the city on a plan to place bins for metal, glass and paper recycling on the south campus. The location would serve as a drop-off point for employees and the community.
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