Royal Adelaide Hospital and Zero Waste SA
Leadership in hospital waste management
Reducing the ecological footprint of a large public hospital takes strong leadership, solid teamwork and good communication. The Royal Adelaide Hospital demonstrated all three in a large-scale environmental program that has dramatically cut the amount of general and organic waste it sends to landfill.
The RAH has now become a model for green programming in hospitals across South Australia and interstate after showing that sustainability is an achievable goal in even the most challenging work environments.
Every year the RAH deals with more than 50,000 emergencies, it caters for about 400,000 outpatient visits and countless other visitors walk through the doors. Patients are being treated around the clock, many need intensive care and they all need feeding. To keep production scraps and leftovers out of the waste stream, in 2009 the hospital invested in a special vacuum processing system in the main kitchen as part of a new integrated environmental management system. The hospital estimates the food waste vacuum system is diverting about 4.2 tonnes of organic material from sewage every week.
Royal Adelaide Hospital (PDF 1.06Mb)
