Bon Secours – Moving to Zero Waste
“Today we’re wasting less food while serving the same amount of patients…”
Bon Secours Hospital, Dublin is making huge inroads into reducing their waste output and spend. Read how they did it...
The Bon Secours Hospital, Dublin is a private hospital in Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland. Owned by the Roman Catholic Bon Secours Sisters, it offers healthcare to privately insured patients.
In 2014, The City Bin Co. won the opportunity to handle all non-hazardous waste. In working with the head of facilities, Thomas Leonard, we demonstrated cost savings from the start by introducing regular training sessions with the team. In late 2015 we looked at how to make more changes to improve the service while at the same time making savings.
We discussed the Zero Project and agreed that this could be completed if we took it to the catering division of the hospital. We started discussions with head Chef Harry Van Wegen and team manager Teresa Quinn. The project was simple…”How do we segregate the waste in the canteen/catering division in order to divert any potential general waste from landfill”.
We examined the process and met the team. There are 6 kitchens at the hospital. One main kitchen and five food holding areas. We noticed that even though meals were being ordered by patients early in the day they weren’t been eaten, because doctors were putting them on fast notices prior to operations. We recognised that about 100 meals a day in the form of breakfast, lunch, and tea were being wasted.
All of this food is now being saved and the spend on food has been lowered. The next stage of the process was to provide colour coded bins in the kitchen and to segregate the food from the recycling. We also used compost bags for this food waste and all of it now was going to the organic bin. All the recycling was going to the recycling bin and the general waste bin was redundant.
Today the hospital is wasting less food while serving the same amount of patients and diverting all of this catering waste from landfills.
If you would like more information on the Zero Project, please contact John Farrell, The City Bin Co.
