The Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council (HPRC) is pleased to announce the appointment of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) to its Healthcare Facility Advisory Board (HFAB), a role intended to help the council set priorities and steer the agenda toward its mission of inspiring and enabling sustainable, cost-effective recycling solutions for plastic products and materials used in the delivery of healthcare. Specifically, HFAB members assist the council in identifying high value needs and opportunities for action, share firsthand perspective and understanding of recycling barriers that exist within their facilities, and provide access to data, information, and resources at the hospital level.
“Healthcare plastics recycling is a multi-faceted and complex topic,” says Peylina Chu, Executive Director of HPRC. “We count on sustainability-leading healthcare organizations to provide valuable input to our work and help us identify opportunities where we can make the greatest impact. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is recognized for their achievements in sustainability and will make an excellent addition to our advisory board.”
Located in Boston, BIDMC is one of the nation’s preeminent academic medical centers, committed to providing excellence in clinical care, research and community outreach. It is also a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.
“At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, we believe environmental responsibility plays an integral role in our mission to provide extraordinary care where the patient comes first,” says Avery Palardy, Sustainability Program Manager at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “We have a strong commitment to sustainability and in 2020 we set sustainability goals for all of our focus areas: waste, water, energy, food, responsible procurement, healthy building, transportation, and engagement.”
More specifically, BIDMC has set a zero-waste goal that seeks to divert over 80% of non-hazardous solid waste from landfill or incineration by 2030 through reduction, reuse, recycling, composting or technology efforts.
“We hope that through our participation with HPRC as an advisory board member, we will be able to combine our efforts and purchasing power to drive market change across the industry and make meaningful impact in the world of plastics,” concludes Palardy.
In recent years, BIDMC has been recognized locally and nationally for their sustainability efforts, including being named a Healthcare without Harm Climate Challenge Champion, EPA National WasteWise Award Winner, and Practice GreenHealth Circle of Excellence Award.
HPRC is currently engaged in multiple initiatives aimed at enabling recycling of healthcare plastics, including research into advanced recycling technologies to recycle a mixed stream of healthcare plastics; a study focused on optimizing reverse logistics processes for collecting, sorting, and preparing healthcare plastic waste for recycling; and focused outreach and engagement with recyclers.
Additional healthcare advisory board members include Ascension Health, Advocate Aurora Health, Cleveland Clinic, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Hackensack Meridian Health, Kaiser Permanente, Lehigh Valley Health Network and Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.
About HPRC
HPRC is a private technical coalition of industry peers across healthcare, recycling, and waste management industries seeking to improve the recyclability of plastic products within healthcare. HPRC is made up of brand leading and globally recognized members including Amcor, Baxter, BD, Boston Scientific, DuPont, Eastman Chemical Company, Freepoint Ecosystems, Gore Medical, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Nelipak Healthcare Packaging, Paxxus, Plastic Ingenuity, Ravago Recycling Group, Remington Medical, Sartorius, Sonoco Healthcare, Sterimed, Stryker, ThermoFisher Scientific, and Westfall Technik. The council convenes biannually at meetings hosted by an HPRC member that regularly include stakeholder engagement events and facility tours to further learning and knowledge sharing opportunities through first-hand demonstration of best practices in sustainable product and packaging design and recycling processes. For more information, visit www.hprc.org and follow HPRC on LinkedIn.
About Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School and consistently ranks as a national leader among independent hospitals in National Institutes of Health funding. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a health care system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,800 physicians and 36,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education. For more information, visit www.bidmc.org.