Waste not, want not

GOOD news are hard to find even in this supposed season of joy, but here’s one that comes from an unexpected sector: the government, specifically the hospitals it supervises.

It seems that since the passage of two laws tackling waste some seven or eight years ago, some government hospitals have been at the forefront of making sure they have not only reduced the waste they generate, they are even making money out of some of the trash they are left with. The income has been channeled back to the hospitals, mostly to augment their meager budgets. One of the hospitals, the Philippine Heart Center (PHC), has also entered into an arrangement with the Tahanang Walang Hagdanan Foundation, which turns the healthcare facility’s tin scraps into wheelchairs.

The PHC has also set up a system to keep close tabs of its infectious waste, which it pays a waste treater to dispose of. The monitoring — which is aimed also at reducing the volume of infectious waste — starts at the hospital and continues even after the trash leaves the hospital.

The experiences of the Heart Center not only debunk an enduring perception that government-run hospitals are less capable of properly handling waste, they also show that healthcare-waste management can be effectively implemented in developing countries like the Philippines.

We hope the piece, which is part of i Report‘s Power and Poisons series, ignites a similar can-do spirit in our readers.

Read on at pcij.org.