Tamworth's Tamara Private Hospital saves 165,000 items from landfill in green campaign by Ramsay Health Care

The hospital's sustainability drive is part of a green campaign by parent company Ramsay Health Care, which has committed to saving tens of millions of items from landfill.

The first items to go were plastic plates, cutlery and straws, but staff are constantly recommending new ways to replace plastic items with sustainable alternatives and the hospital aims to do even better this year.

CEO Trish Thornberry said the company as a whole had replaced 25 million plastic items over the last 18 months, and aims to replace 50 million this year.

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The Tamworth hospital has done its fair share, she said.

"Since we started this initiative Tamara have removed 165,000 single use plastic items from landfill," she said.

"That would include injection trays, medicine cups, drinking cups. and some cutlery."

Those items would otherwise have ended up in the Tamworth landfill, she said.

But the green campaign is far from over.

Hospitals contain scores of items which can't be easily recycled or reused, like needles, face masks and testing equipment, which can't be used once contaminated.

Ramsay is starting on the lower-hanging fruit, recycling some of its oxygen tubing and oxygen masks and sending them to a company which produces rubber matting for children's playgrounds and rubber hoses.

But the day is is coming when the hospital will be completely free of plastic waste, Dr Thornberry said, though emphasising that the hospital would only do so in a safe way for patients.

She said the campaign left her astonished at the sheer quantity of waste generated by the rural hospital.

"It was enlightening, absolutely," she said.

"It is incredible to see. When we started this project and people became aware of it, it's very interesting for them to see just what we're doing and what changes were making. When we get reports and data back, it's exciting because people see that we are making a difference."

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Ramsay's national environment manager, Sue Panuccio, said the campaign had been triggered by staff and patients concerned about the number of single-use plastic water bottles the hospitals had been wasting.

Both groups had proven "very passionate" about the green campaign, she said.

"The National Waste Report 2020 stated that only 13 per cent of plastic used in Australia is recycled," she said.

"What isn't recycled ends up in landfill, or worse, in our oceans. As a country surrounded by water, reducing plastic waste is something we can all relate to."

The company aims to keep 50 million single-use plastic items out of landfill by December 2022.

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