by
Nancy Ryerson, Staff Writer | January 31, 2014
From the January 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The solution: Lac-Mac, Canada’s largest manufacturer of reusable surgical gowns, purveys gowns that can be re-processed at a commercial laundry 75 to 100 times before being thrown out. The company has been around since 1920, and has won awards from Practice Greenhealth and the Recycle Council of Ontario.
More advice: Petrovskis quotes Practice Greenhealth’s recommended practice: create an environmentally preferable purchasing plan. It’s the practice of purchasing products or services that have less of an environmental footprint than products with the same footprint. “Environmental preferable purchasing is a good place to start in becoming more sustainable,” says Petrovskis.
Green need: Eco-friendly cleaning
Company: WorldWare Enterprises Ltd.; product: Eatoils
The problem: Though hospital cleaning products effectively kill bacteria, they may be creating just as many health problems as they prevent. Cleaning products have been found to be a primary cause of work-related asthma. Children and babies are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of chemical cleaners, according to Health Care Without Harm.
The solution: Cleaning solution Eatoils may sound a little unsettling in its description, but actually offers a much healthier solution than chemical-ridden cleaners. The product is made of tiny microbes eat the organic materials that feed harmful bacteria, eliminating disease risk in a safe, all-natural way. Like many sustainable solutions, Eatoils can save hospitals money in addition to lessening its impact. “Typically, we have found that a facility can get two to three times the square foot cleaning of their previous products with Eatoils products,” says Charles Robinson, national sales manager at WorldWare Enterprises Ltd. “You can use less supplies like mop heads because our products won't (cause them to) deteriorate like typical cleaning products do.”
More advice: Even if a product has a light environmental footprint, or even if it’s reusable, facilities should still consider what happens to it at the end of its life. “If providing sustainability is going to be a part of your daily decision-making process, then you should be looking deeply into all of your incoming supplies as well as where all of your outgoing materials go,” says Robinson. Eatoils is readily biodegradable, he notes.
Green need: Better mattresses
Company: Naturepedic
The problem: Traditional mattresses often contain toxic substances like flame retardants vinyl, phthalates and formaldehyde. Those chemicals can be particularly harmful to children and babies. They can even affect children before they are born — hundreds of different kinds of chemicals are found in the cord blood of babies in the womb and in breast milk.
