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Recovering Plastics in a Hospital Can Have Environmental, Social and Economic Benefits
Jérôme Ribesse1, Nathalie Robitaille2
1Co-founder and executive director of SSE. He has a master's degree in Biology from the Free University of Brussels and a master's degree in Occupational and Environmental Health from the University of Montreal. He acted as a sustainable development coordinator in a Montreal healthcare facility from 2004 to 2011.
Abstract:
Plastics are omnipresent in today's healthcare facilities. In Quebec, recyclable plastics (the ones with a 1 to 7 number on it, excluding number 6 or styrofoam) represent 7% of all the waste generated by healthcare institutions - 2,907 tonnes each year (Proulx et al. 2009). The vast majority of these plastics are sent to landfill instead of being recycled due to the lack of suitable recycling systems. In collaboration with three Montreal-based hospitals, Synergie Santé Environnement (SSE) conducted an 18-month pilot project to implement a sustainable plastic recycling system with threefold objectives: reduce landfill costs, obtain royalties for the plastics and assure traceability.
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