Green Week – Increasing recycling and Reducing Waste | Latest news

The procurement of products and services is our largest contributor to our carbon footprint. Work is being undertaken to make our supply chain more carbon neutral but there are direct actions we can do now to reduce waste, particularly when it comes to medicine and food waste.

Reducing medicines wastage has always been high on the pharmacy agenda where in 2018 the Trust introduced a scheme to recover unused medicines which otherwise would have been disposed as wastage. Pharmacy returns bins were placed in clinical areas across both main campuses and all divisions, targeting areas most likely to have reusable medicines. In the future we will be:

• Maintaining and reviewing stock control measures of medicines on wards and departments to prevent medicines reaching their expiration date.
• Improving practices around administering medicines to patients with the aim of reducing the use of disposable plastic ancillaries.
• Encouraging suppliers to reduce the carbon intensity of medicine deliveries.
• Considering recycling schemes for patients own medicines e.g. inhaler canisters, empty blister packs

Good food and nutrition is a vital part of patient recovery when in our care but another area in which there is a lot of waste. It is estimated food and catering services account for 6% of total emissions cross the NHS. We have recently ensured that

• Maintain locally sourced and seasonal menus high in fruits and vegetables and low in heavily processed foods.
• Serve the right amount of food to patients using the ordering system to identify where smaller portions are requested.
• Ensure all new equipment is energy efficient.
• Reduce the use of single use plastics for reusable containers.

Through these measures and others set out in our Green Plan we will help do our bit to tackle climate change.

NUH Green Plan 2022-2025.pdf [pdf] 1MB