Niagara College students presented their environmental findings to NHS staff. From left are team members Kailey Ledrew; Nick Jancsar (NHS); Yaneth Londono; Lisa Hay; Mittale Suckak; Christine Spano and Sandy Herkimer, Niagara College Internship Co-ordinator for the Environmental Management and Assessment Program.

A learning partnership

Each year, students from Niagara College’s Environmental Management and Assessment Program take on the task of examining Niagara Health’s conservation practices and recommending better ways of managing the environment.

This year, a dedicated team of students focused on six areas – education, recycling, waste minimization, water, green purchasing and green lifestyle. Becoming a green hospital is a lofty goal, since each NHS site deals daily with a wide range of issues that make it a challenge to be ecofriendly. Proper infection control involves a lot of sterile packaging and major use of water and cleansers. Diverting our waste from the landfill is a full-time job for many as nine categories of waste are sorted and packaged for garbage pickup, recycling, or safe disposal.

The students worked with NHS Hospitality (Environmental Services/Housekeeping/Linen) Leaders Nick Jancsar and Kevin Traynor and concentrated their data collection and review of practices at Greater Niagara General (GNG) and Welland sites. The team’s recommendations started with low or no cost efforts. For instance, educating employees on the importance of being green can begin with fact sheets to raise awareness on simple and easy ways of becoming environmentally friendly, such as encouraging carpooling or using public transit to get to work.

Diversion from the Landfill

“We need to do more recycling,” says Nick, Regional Director of Hospitality. “Right now, about 85% of our waste is classified as general, meaning it is similar to any home or office waste. We are diverting more cans/bottles/paper/cardboard to recycling now, and we’re at a 27% diversion rate. Our goal is to divert 50% of our general waste by 2015.”

Staff efforts can make an enormous difference to the success of our diversion program, Nick says. “The students also suggest signage and recycling bins to better inform patients and visitors of the importance we place on conservation.”

Waste minimization is another area to be improved upon. “We’ve changed to clear garbage bags to make items that could be recycled more visible,” Nick says. “We’re beginning to reduce our usage of disposable products. A waste audit was recently conducted at GNG to give us a baseline on our current efforts, so we can target areas for improvement.”

Food Composting

The students recommended the NHS look at setting up a food composting program. Other hospitals have diverted 55,000 kilograms of food waste a year and started in one area, such as a cafeteria. The food scraps are fed into a garburator along with paper napkins, paper towels, milk cartons and cardboard. The waste is shredded and taken to a plant to be recycled into high-protein feed supplement for animals. This option is less expensive to implement as it is not being serviced by a composting facility, but taken to farms as animal feed.