Associated Health Resources, an affiliate of the Maine Hospital Association, announced its partnership with the Institution Recycling Network, Concord, N.H., to help achieve the goals of Maine Hospitals for a Healthy Environment.
Maine Hospitals for a Healthy Environment is a pollution prevention agreement, signed last March, which is aimed at reducing the environmental impacts of Maine’s 39 hospitals.
A principal goal of Hospitals for a Healthy Environment is to reduce the quantity of waste discarded from Maine’s hospitals by 50 percent by the year 2010, with a particular focus on mercury-containing wastes.
The Institution Recycling Network is a cooperative recycling organization that works specifically with health care and educational institutions to achieve waste reduction and recycling goals.
The IRN recycles more than 40 different commodities, including computers, fluorescent lamps, batteries, construction wastes, paper, and metals.
Under the partnership announced, the MHA will encourage its member hospitals to join the IRN and take advantage of the IRN’s multiple recycling opportunities. “We see this as a great stride toward achieving the goals of Hospitals for a Healthy Environment,” said MHA president Steven Michaud. “With the aggressive recycling goals we’ve set, it’s hard for our individual facilities to find markets and service for all the recyclable commodities they generate. This is where the IRN specializes.”
Under the agreement, Maine hospitals that join the IRN will be able to call for recycling services for any of the more than 40 commodities the IRN handles. The IRN will identify markets and then arrange for transportation and processing of the recyclables.
The IRN will also provide regular reports, both to the individual hospitals and to the MHA, to document the quantities of different materials that are recycled. “Tracking and documentation are one of the most important commitments of Maine Hospitals for a Healthy Environment,” says Tamara Butts, who heads the program at MHA. “The IRN can provide a single reporting mechanism for all of our hospitals who take advantage of its services, and this is important to tracking progress toward our goals.”