The Mackay Oral Health team has issued a recycling challenge to other teams cut down the amount of cardboard thrown away.
Dental Assistant Laura Bettinzoli is the driving force and she has already implemented a range of successful recycling initiatives in the Mackay Base Hospital dental clinic.
“In the clinic alone we go through approximately 200 boxes of gloves and 90 boxes of masks every month,” she said.
“If you look across the entire health service that would be an incredible amount of cardboard boxes we should be recycling.
“What people don’t know is that we are actually charged more per bin for the disposal of our general waste, so it is important that we all take recycling seriously.”
Two years ago Laura decided to make some ‘green’ changes within the dental clinic and today these are now normal practise.
“Recycling is a team effort in the dental clinic; we don’t rely only on the cleaners to do the work for us,” she said.
“To make thing easier we have a couple of smaller bins throughout the clinic so we don’t have to go out to the big skip bin every time.
“We also have a few unspoken rules such as whoever takes the last glove or mask is the one to unfold the cardboard and put it in the recycling bin.
“Or if we walk past and see the smaller recycling bin is full, we take the couple of extra seconds to empty it into the larger skip.”
Laura said while that it has taken time for everyone in the team to fully get on board, the changes can be easily implemented across all facilities within the health service.
“If all of our colleagues across all streams were willing to take that extra two seconds to recycle cardboard instead of throwing it in the general waste, it’d make a huge difference.
“I understand many people are time-poor and think it’d be a lot more effort to recycle but if you implement small changes in how you do things eventually it becomes second nature.
“It’s all about changing the way we think and sharing the responsibility. What is the difference between recycling the bigger boxes, to doing the same with our smaller boxes?”
More Information
Danielle Jesser, Media and Communications Manager
mhhs-comms@health.qld.gov.au
Phone 0417 756 221
