Launch of new national campaign to reduce/reuse plastics in health care

January 21, 2025 –The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care (the Coalition), in collaboration with Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) will launch a new national awareness initiative to reduce and reuse plastics in health care settings. This three-year project is funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).

Reducing single use plastic (SUP) usage and waste within Canadian health care facilities will reduce plastic waste exposure and impacts on the environment and humans on land and shorelines, animal ingestion of macro plastics, and microplastics ingestion by animals and humans. In addition, this project has many synergies with other Canadian government and health system priorities such as reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) from our health system, increasing system resilience to supply chain interruptions as was witnessed during the COVID- 19 pandemic and expected during more extreme weather events due to climate change, and promoting circular economy approaches to resolve resource and waste issues.

“Small changes can have big impacts, and improving how plastics are made, used, and managed in every sector of our economy is paramount to reduce plastic waste and pollution. Benefiting from more than $330,000 in funding over three years, the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care will be able to assess procurement practices in the medical sector and support this industry in adopting sustainable practices. The Government of Canada also provided funding to the Coalition for their assessment of a circular economy model for hospital- generated personal protective equipment and medical single-use plastic waste,” says the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Starting with a pilot at HHS that builds on their existing sustainable procurement initiatives, the project will see the development of resources that will lead to altered procurement practices, onsite SUP reduction, as well as more educated and engaged staff. “Through our sustainable procurement initiatives, we have already started to see the benefits of working with vendors who are committed to helping our hospital reduce our GHG emissions and waste’ says Kelly Campbell, Vice President, Corporate Services and Capital Development.

McMaster University will be involved through training of postgraduate medical residents on using Quality Improvement (QI) projects to address SUP through McMaster University’s Postgraduate Medical Education (PGME) Program. Dr. Myles Sergeant, who is the Sustainable Healthcare Lead for the PGME program, is also the Executive Director of the Coalition, and will lead this step through the sustainable health care committee and will supervise QI projects focusing on sustainable procurement and SUP reduction. “This is a great opportunity to train new doctors to incorporate sustainability thinking into their work and for us to learn from their experiences,” says Dr Sergeant.

The HHS pilot will be followed by a national campaign to engage hospitals across Canada to implement similar initiatives and reduce more health care generated plastic waste. These participating facilities will have access to resources developed through the pilot, such as case studies, education and awareness tools for the health care workforce, protocols for undertaking sustainable procurement initiatives and infographics.

For more information, including upcoming events, knowledge mobilization tools and how to engage your health care facility in the national campaign (which starts at the end of year two) please visit the Coalition’s website at https://greenhealthcare.ca/plastics/ to check for project updates.

The Canadian Coalition for Green Healthcare is Canada’s premier green health care resource network leading the transition to environmentally sustainable and climate-resilient practices www.greenhealthcare.ca

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Contact:
Kent Waddington, Communications Director
Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care
Kent@kentwaddington.com