Going green: helping our hospitals cut carbon in care

Raising Our Recycling Game

One of the ways we can all lead a greener lifestyle at home is to make sure we recycle our rubbish in the correct bin. And the same applies in our hospitals too.

Recently, our volunteers have been out and about helping to deliver brand new recycling bins to wards, departments and offices across our hospital sites.

They've helped to make sure many more workspaces are equipped with clearly labelled green bins, so that hospital staff and visitors can recycle plastic bottles, cardboard, paper and cans.

"We know that staff in our hospitals are passionate about protecting the environment - and that better, more accessible recycling facilities have been a common request," said Chris Neal, our Head of Volunteering.

"We're delighted our volunteers have been able to make this happen, and support the Trust's commitment to tackling its carbon emissions."

At Charing Cross, Hammersmith and St Mary's hospitals, 150 new recycling bins have now been installed.

Cutting

Your generous donations are helping us fund a trial involving new gas canisters specially designed to cut carbon emissions in surgery.

Teams at Charing Cross, Hammersmith and St Mary's hospitals have started using this new technology to capture anaesthetic gases, which make up a huge 5% of the total carbon footprint of the NHS.

When patients are hooked up to anaesthetic machines during the surgery, the gases they exhale are normally released into the atmosphere through pipes leading to the hospital roof.

But these eco-friendly canisters capture 99% of the gases, which can then be purified and reused.

Thanks to your support, we've awarded a grant to fund an initial trial of the technology in surgical theatres at our hospitals.

Dr Tom Dolphin is a Consultant Anaesthetist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

He hopes this clever innovation will drastically reduce the Trust's carbon emissions from anaesthetics.

"We hope this trial will demonstrate the technology is easy to implement, so the Trust can roll these devices out permanently across all surgical theatres, resulting in fewer of these anaesthetic gases being released into the atmosphere," he said. "There are around 90 anaesthetic machines across our hospitals, with thousands of anaesthetics given to patients each year. So making this change would be a significant step in reducing our carbon footprint."

Masks To Finger Joints

- pioneering recycle scheme points the way

Millions of items of personal protective equipment discarded in hospitals could soon be recycled into new products for use in the NHS, thanks to your support. Every year six billion pieces of PPE - that's around 28,000 tonnes - are distributed across the health service for hospital staff to use.

98%

Currently, the majority of these items are not recycled - and the amount of plastic waste has soared over the last three years with the increased use of PPE during the pandemic.

But now your donations are helping to change the story.

Our hospitals have teamed up with a major PPE manufacturer to find ways to collect single-use plastic face masks and explore whether they can be recycled into new products, such as bed pans, syringes and even prosthetic finger joints. Thanks to your support, we've awarded a grant to fund an initial trial, which will be completed later this year.

"It's more important than ever that across healthcare we're doing everything we can to reduce our environmental impact," said Dr Bob Klaber, Director of Strategy, Research and Innovation at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

"With increased PPE usage becoming the new normal in hospitals, managing waste is a problem that isn't going away."