Alliance to Save Energy Fact Sheets
The following fact sheets from the Alliance to Save Energy provide information to show how energy efficiency saves money, increases comfort, protects the environment, and more.

ENERGY STAR Healthcare
Since 1991, ENERGY STAR Healthcare partners have saved over $200 million on utility bills while preventing millions of tons of pollutants linked to respiratory diseases, acid rain, and climate change. Look here for healthcare-specific information and tools you can use to improve your hospital's energy performance - good for both your bottom line and the environment!

Solstice
Solstice is the Internet information service of the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) and a site for sustainable energy and development information. It is also the host of numerous discussion groups on energy topics.

WasteCap Resource Conservation Network
The WasteCap Resource Conservation Network (ReCoN) is an initiative of the Business & Industry Association of New Hampshire. Its goal is to help businesses save money and conserve natural resources by providing free, confidential assistance in reducing solid waste, conserving energy and water, and preventing pollution.

HOSPITAL CASE STUDY: (submitted in 1999 by Lloyd Berry, Plant and Operations Director) 
Speare Memorial Hospital, Plymouth, NH: From the fall of 1995 to current, our square footage increased from 55,700 to 71,000 sf. During this period of renovation, shifting equipment, fuels, fuel suppliers and upgrades, their utility costs changed from $3.91/sq ft down to $3.28/sq ft in 1997 and up to $3.58/sq ft by the end of 1998. This period represented a 36.5% reduction in oil expenditures, an increase of 11.6% in LP gas expenditures, a reduction of 29.5% in water/sewer expenditures and an increase of 23.6% of electrical dollars spent. These numbers equal a 6.2% overall expended energy dollar increase while square footage for this same period increased 21.5%.

The answer for how to get started with energy improvement projects is to look around, question and plan. Projects can be done in phases or started small, but the needed first steps are plan and begin. Saving energy can be easy and is good for everyone, so let's get started.

ENVIRONMENTAL / OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY:

CGH Environmental Strategies, Inc.
CGH Environmental Strategies are specialists in working to reduce the ecological footprint of the health care industry through proper management of wastes, energy use, water, and air emissions. They assist institutions to provide efficient and safe work settings by decreasing the costs and risks of waste management, and to enhance the position of health care institutions as civic environmental leaders by minimizing their operational impacts on local infrastructure.

Jacques Whitford
Jacques Whitford is a full-service consulting engineering, environmental science, and risk management firm. Our experienced staff of certified environmental auditors, engineers, and scientists provide solutions to New Hampshire healthcare facilities out of our Portsmouth office. Specific services include: compliance assistance, SPCC plan development, contingency plans, environmental permitting & reporting, pollution prevention, environmental site assessments, and geotechnical investigations, among others.

Northeast Business Environmental Network
NBEN provides on-line resources for environmental health and safety professionals. Their mission is to support environmental excellence as a competitive advantage by sharing practical information about compliance, pollution prevention and environmental management systems.

Safdoc Systems
Safdoc Systems, LLC offers consulting to the healthcare and biotech industries, specializing in environmental health and safety, as well as toxicology and risk assessment. Its purpose is to assist healthcare and research clients in dealing with and resolving the environmental health and safety concerns they face, and to assist them in preparing for the challenges of the future.

Triumvirate Environmental
Triumvirate uses JCAHO practices to link environment of care standards to EPA, OSHA, DOT and state agencies resulting in the development of a comprehensive plan from which to operate your hospital or health care facility. Triumvirate can help you manage and dispose of your unique wastes and improve environmental performance. Its goal is to minimize your waste and keep your employees safe.

Worker Health and Safety
The Center for Environmental Health has compiled a comprehensive listing of web resources with information relating to the health and safety of health care workers.

Workplace Issues: Occupational Safety and Health
This American Nurses Association homepage details ANA’s efforts on the occupational safety and health front, including position statements, collaborations with other organizations, ANA’s own brochures/literature, and more. Specific issues include bloodborne pathogens, latex allergy, needlestick injury, tuberculosis, workplace violence and pollution prevention in healthcare. It also provides links to other agencies and organizations that have made major contributions in the area of occupational safety and health, such as the CDC, NIOSH, and OSHA.

ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERABLE PURCHASING:

Alternative Products and Procedures
The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production’s Sustainable Hospitals Project provides information about more environmentally sound, healthy and safe alternatives to conventional healthcare products, materials, and work practices.

Certified Latex-Free Hospital Product Database
The Certified Latex-Free Hospital Product Database provides one-stop shopping for latex-free information, including product names, order numbers manufacturer contact information and more. Data is rechecked every six months to make sure it’s correct and current. Hospitals must pay to access the database, but CETRA Latex-Free Informational Service claims their service will save many hours in product searches.

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (H2E tools/resources)
H2E provides tools and resources to help you establish green purchasing programs at your facility. Learn how to buy products that have a reduced environmental impact while maintaining the same quality and performance.

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) "HOW TO" Guide
This guide is a product of the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing work group of the Hospitals for a Healthy Environment cooperative project between the US EPA and the American Hospital Association. It explains what EPP is, its benefits and how to implement a program at your hospital.

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing in Health Care (Specs and Policies)
The Database of Specifications and Policies for Environmentally Preferable Purchasing in Health Care, developed by the Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance for Toxics Use Reduction, includes language used in Requests for Proposals (RFPs), public solicitations for contracts, or purchasing contracts to specify environmentally preferable products for health care organizations. These policies and statements are provided to assist hospitals interested in improving their environmental performance through purchasing and contracting activities.

Green Purchasing: The Issue
Health Care Without Harm shows how you can reduce environmental impact through purchasing decisions by implementing EPP, setting purchasing goals and working within a product evaluation committee.  Also includes a sample letter to GPOs.

Health Care Environmental Purchasing Tool
The Health Care Environmental Purchasing Tool targets the reduction of persistent bio- accumulative toxins (PBT's) from health care facilities, such as mercury and toxic halogenated compounds (dioxins).  It contains purchasing strategies to reduce PBTs and help your facility evaluate the environmental impacts of the products it purchases. It also includes hospital case studies.

Health Care EPP Network Information Exchange Bulletin
This bi-monthly newsletter published by the Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance for Toxics Use Reduction provides environmentally preferable purchasing news for healthcare organizations, including environmental purchasing innovations from across the country.

GREEN/HEALTHY BUILDINGS:

Healthy Building Network
The Healthy Building Network is a national network of environmental and health activists, green building professionals and others, working to promote healthier building as a means of improving public health and preserving the global environment. Site includes information on setting project goals, case studies, teleconference trainings and award programs specific to health care.

Healthy Building: The Issue

A key element of healthy building design and construction is the use of healthy

materials. Health Care Without Harm provides information about an integrated,

systems approach to energy design, healthful indoor air quality and careful interior

material selection and many resources to help you "build green". 

MEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT:

Eleven Recommendations for Improving Medical Waste Management
These basic recommendations from the authors of "An Ounce of Prevention: Waste Reduction Strategies for Health Care Facilities" are guidelines to stimulate better and more specific planning and action programs at the municipal government level and then at the level of individual health care facilities. 

Infectious Waste: (H2E tools/resources)
Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) provides tools and resources that can help you manage and reduce your regulated medical waste.  Also includes medical waste rules for all U.S. states.

Medical Waste: The Issue
Health Care Without Harm provides information about minimizing and segregating medical waste and alternative waste treatment technologies that are safer and cleaner than incineration and just as effective at rendering medical waste harmless.  Includes many medical waste resources.

Medical Waste Treatment Technologies: Evaluating Non-Incineration Alternatives
This 12-page document developed by Healthcare Without Harm makes it clear that waste management is a process, a system -- not a "magic box" that will make waste disappear. This evaluation tool helps to identify some of the tough questions that need to be asked when a health care facility is examining waste treatment methods. 

Non-Incineration Medical Waste Treatment Technologies
This report released by Health Care Without Harm on October 11, 2001 is the most comprehensive information available to date on the pros and cons of alternatives to medical waste incineration. It explores the environmental and economic impacts of about 50 specific technologies.

PharmEcology Associates LLC
PharmEcology Associates LLC provides information specifically tailored to the health care industry to assist with interpreting and applying EPA hazardous waste regulations to discarded pharmaceuticals and other healthcare products.

U.S. EPA Medical Waste Home Page
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste provides information concerning medical waste issues. It includes the definition for medical waste, FAQs, alternate treatment technologies, OSHA, state, DOT and US Postal Service regulations, as well as downloadable reference documents and other programs related to medical waste.

Self-Assessment Manual for Proper Management of Medical Waste
The California Department of Health Services, in partnership with the California Hospital Association, has developed this manual to assist generators wishing to improve either compliance or efficiency in management of healthcare-generated waste. It provides useful waste management information for all health care facilities.

MERCURY REDUCTION PROGRAMS/RESOURCES:

Mercury and the Healthcare Professional
This 17 minute video, developed by the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance and US EPA Region 5, presents case studies of 5 Minnesota hospitals and what they have done to phase out mercury at their facilities. To borrow NHHA’s copy, contact Debbie Augustine at daugustine@nhha.org. Or call Janet Bowen of EPA New England at 617-918-1795 regarding availability.

New Hampshire’s Mercury-added Products Legislation Fact Sheet    
On June 20, 2000, legislation regulating mercury-added products was signed into law.  House Bill 1418 was developed to reduce exposure to mercury and help further efforts to eliminate mercury-containing products from the solid waste stream.  The NH Department of Environmental Services’ fact sheet explains the bill and provides a link to the actual legislation. 

New Hampshire’s Mercury Reduction in Health Care Project
The NH Department of Environmental Services Pollution Prevention Program, in partnership with the U.S. EPA and NHHA’s Foundation for Healthy Communities has undertaken a project to promote the reduction of toxics use at health care facilities, with a special focus on mercury reduction. The project involves on-site assistance at participating facilities, setting up an infrastructure to promote continuous environmental improvement, and outreach and training activities.

Reducing Mercury Use in Health Care: Promoting a Healthier Environment
This "how-to" manual was designed to help hospitals start mercury pollution prevention programs or accelerate programs already in place. Produced by New York’s Monroe County Department of Health, and funded by the U.S. EPA, this document offers best management practices you can use to reduce mercury in the environment and avoid the need for increased regulations in the years to come.

Sustainable Hospitals Project: Mercury Reduction
This web site offers alternative product listings, reference information on mercury reduction, including case studies, how to establish mercury pollution prevention in your hospital, and a description of the products and locations in the hospital that contain mercury. It also provides management tools that can help you implement mercury reduction programs

U.S. EPA: Mercury Use Reduction & Waste Prevention in Medical Facilities
This U.S. EPA website provides terrifically comprehensive information regarding mercury in medical settings. It introduces viewers to the dangers of mercury in the environment, and identifies preventive measures against environmental pollution by mercury from medical facilities. Alternatives to mercury use in health care settings are identified, and proper management techniques for handling used mercury and mercury spills are described.

WHO ME? Do I Contribute Mercury To The Environment?
This eye catching educational display board entitled Who Me? Do I contribute Mercury to the Environment? is available to loan to NHHA-member hospitals. It  makes a great addition to high traffic areas such as lobbies or cafeterias.

MERCURY THERMOMETER REDUCTION/ALTERNATIVES:

Alternative Products - Fever Thermometers
These pages of the Sustainable Hospitals web site provide resources for consumers and professionals about the various types of mercury-alternative thermometers, how they work and points to consider when selecting them.

Frequently Asked Questions About Mercury Fever Thermometers
The U.S. EPA and Environment Canada provide answers to frequently asked questions about mercury fever thermometers. Learn about some good alternatives to mercury thermometers, how to clean up mercury spills and how to phase out mercury thermometers used in laboratories.

How to Plan and Hold a Mercury Thermometer Exchange
This guide, provided by Health Care Without Harm, will show you how to plan and hold a mercury thermometer exchange in your hospital, school or community.

Mercury Thermometer Swap: Case Study
On Earth Day 1999, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center hosted a mercury thermometer swap for their employees. Laura F. Brannen, DHMC’s Waste Minimization Coordinator provides a brief account of how they organized and implemented this event, along with an outcome report. This information may help you to plan such an event at your hospital.

MERCURY RECYCLING/TAKE-BACK PROGRAMS:

Advanced Environmental Recycling Co./Mercury Technologies Intnl.
AERC/MTI is a full service mercury recycling company committed to developing and utilizing the recycling technologies of the future. In following the edict of the EPA and AHA, we have joined forces with several hospitals and established guidelines for an economical, safe and environmentally sound way to manage the reduction of mercury and mercury-containing devices within the healthcare industry.

Lamprecycle.org
This Web site, sponsored by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, encourages the recycling of spent mercury-containing lamps. It provides information regarding the benefits of recycling mercury-containing lamps, EPA regulations, state lamp recycling regulations and contact information, and more.

Sphygmomanometer Take-back Programs
The Sustainable Hospitals Project offers a list of manufacturers with take-back programs for replacement mercury sphygmomanometers.

HEALTH EFFECTS of MERCURY EXPOSURE:

Mercury and Health
Health Care Without Harm’s handbook, Healing the Harm, includes information about where mercury pollution comes from, symptoms of mercury poisoning and sources of mercury in health care and their alternatives.

Mercury In Fish: Cause For Concern?  
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has compiled information regarding methyl mercury in fish along with advice for pregnant women and women of childbearing age who may become pregnant.

New Hampshire’s Fish Consumption Advisory
The New Hampshire Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS), Office of Community and Public Health reminds New Hampshire citizens of the potential dangers of eating freshwater fish caught in New Hampshire's water bodies because of mercury contamination. DHHS, along with 40 other U.S. states, recommends following certain guidelines for how much freshwater fish people should eat.

POLLUTION PREVENTION:

Chemicals/P2 (H2E Tools/Resources)
Pollution prevention (P2) minimizes the volume and toxicity of waste a facility produces. The Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) provides tools and resources to help prevent pollution and reduce chemical waste in your facility. Learn how to minimize pharmaceutical, lab chemical, pesticide, sterilant/disinfectant wastes, and more.

Compliance Assistance and Pollution Prevention in New England
EPA New England provides a guide to environmental resources and assistance for hospitals and other healthcare facilities. It also includes information to help them reduce the environmental impacts of their operations and improve their understanding of and compliance with environmental regulations.

Environmental Self-Assessment for Healthcare Facilities
A quick and easy pollution prevention checklist for health care facilities produced by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation Pollution Prevention Unit.

Going Green: A Resource Kit for Pollution Prevention in Health Care
This resource kit was written by Health Care Without Harm especially for a health care audience and takes into account the unique roadblocks and obstacles inherent in the health care arena. It contains steps that can measurably improve a facility's environmental performance.

Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) and NH3E
H2E is a cooperative effort of the AHA, the EPA, the ANA and Health Care Without Harm working to eliminate mercury-containing waste from the waste stream and reduce the total volume of all waste generated by U.S. hospitals.

NH3E is a network of New Hampshire hospitals concerned with how their practices impact the environment and health of the communities they serve. It works to and share information with peer hospitals facing similar concerns and strives to reduce both the volume and toxicity of their waste.

Health Care Without Harm
HCWH is an international coalition of hospitals, health care systems, medical professionals and others devoted to environmentally responsible health care. Here you can find information on alternative products and technologies, along with other tools for environmental impact reduction.

NH Pollution Prevention Partnership Internship Program
The Internship Program teams engineering students with interested companies to work on pollution prevention projects over the summer. Several programs designed to assist hospitals have been developed.

NH Pollution Prevention Program (NHPPP)
The NHPPP is a free, confidential, non-enforcement, pollution prevention and compliance assistance program available to all NH businesses, institutions, municipalities and agencies.  This site offers NH-specific pollution prevention information for health care facilities and includes guidelines for infectious and pharmaceutical waste management and disposal.

The Nightingale Institute for Health and the Environment
An organization dedicated to building a cleaner, healthier world through medical waste reduction and sustainable healthcare practices. Among other things, this website provides links for healthcare providers relating to medical waste management, waste reduction and mercury reduction.

P2 Gems (Pollution Prevention)
A guide to over 500 pollution prevention (P2) resources on the Internet. P2 Gems is a search tool for facility planners, engineers, and managers looking for technical, process, and materials for management information.

Pesticides, Fragrances and Cleaners: The Issue
Health Care Without Harm shows how health care facilities can manage pests and provide a clean and sanitary environment without the use of toxic pesticides, cleaning products, disinfectants or fragrance chemicals.

The Sustainable Hospitals Project
SHP provides health care personnel with tools, training, and technical support to improve the environmental practices of hospitals. In addition to reducing hospital environmental pollution, the project also improves health and safety for hospital workers and involves them in identifying and controlling hazards. Their clearinghouse provides useful information about alternative products that don’t contain polyvinyl chloride (PVC), mercury, and other potentially harmful materials.

PVC: PROBLEMS/ALTERNATIVES:

The New Hampshire Dioxin Reduction Strategy 
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services developed the New Hampshire Dioxin Reduction Strategy, a first-in-the-nation plan for reducing dioxin emissions. Among other things, the Strategy recommends working with hospitals to close medical waste incinerators in favor of environmentally safer methods of waste management, such as recycling and sterilization techniques and reducing the use of chlorine-treated products that emit dioxins when burned. 

National Toxicology Program Expert Panel Review of Phthalates
In July 2000, a scientific panel of the National Toxicology Program (NTP) released its findings from a study it conducted regarding the toxicity of DEHP, a softening agent found in medical products made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), such as IV tubing and breathing apparatus.  The panel determined that DEHP poses a reproductive hazard, particularly for infants who receive many medical interventions in their first days and months. 

Neonatal Exposure to DEHP and Opportunities for Prevention
This report, published by Health Care Without Harm, documents a newborn infant’s potential  multiple exposures to DEHP-containing PVC medical devices when treated in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and the availability of alternatives.  It also contains findings released by the National Toxicology Program’s scientific panel regarding the reproductive and developmental toxicity of DEHP. 

Non-Incineration Medical Waste Treatment Technologies
This report released by Health Care Without Harm on October 11, 2001 is the most comprehensive information available to date on the pros and cons of alternatives to medical waste incineration. It explores the environmental and economic impacts of about 50 specific technologies.

Non-PVC Purchasing - How?
This handbook on non-PVC products was published by the County of Aarhus and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, May 1997. It provides listings for hospital supplies, hospital supplies packaging, office supplies and other common consumer goods that are produced with plastic materials other than PVC. The object of this handbook is to increase the demand for non-PVC products. It also describes the environmental differences between the different types of plastic.

PVC and DEHP: The Issue
Health Care Without Harm offers information about PVC - the most widely used plastic in medical devices - and its harmful effects to patients, the environment and public health. This site explores dioxin, a known human carcinogen, which can be formed during the manufacturing or incineration of PVC, and DEHP, a plastic softener that can leach from PVC medical devices, linked to reproductive birth defects and other illnesses, according to animal studies.   Also provides government reports, and information about how to reduce PVC use, including PVC alternatives.

WASTE REDUCTION / RECYCLING PROGRAMS

EPA Waste Wi$e Program
WasteWise is a free, voluntary, EPA program through which organizations eliminate costly municipal solid waste, benefiting their bottom line and the environment Find out how your organization can save lots of money by reducing, reusing, and recycling solid waste materials.

The Institution Recycling Network
The IR-Network is a cooperative that improves the financial and operating results for recycling programs at colleges and universities, hospitals, nursing facilities and similar institutions. It was established by and for recyclers to address issues that are particular to institutional recycling —  small size, distance to markets, limited processing and storage capabilities, limited budgets, etc.

Medical Supplies and Equipment Recovery
Find out how to set up a medical supplies and equipment recovery program at your hospital. View guidelines developed by the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to help you get started.

Morgan Environmental Solutions
Morgan Environmental Solutions provides complete consulting services in waste management, recycling, and organics for businesses, municipalities, counties, solid waste districts, states, and non-profit organizations, including healthcare. Options provided are cost effective and environmentally motivated.

New Hampshire DES Solid Waste Technical Assistance Section
Besides implementing NH’s waste disposal laws and being a source for agency-wide program information, DES provides technical assistance and educational programs on solid waste management and recycling. They also offer guidance for starting recycling programs. 

New Hampshire's Recycled and Reused Products Directory
WasteCap of NH developed this statewide directory of recycled products available for businesses and consumers. It provides a sampling of businesses that sell or distribute recycled or reused products, what types of recycled or reused products are typically available and how a business or industry can implement a buy-recycled or reused products program.

The Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA)
The Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA) is a non-profit membership organization working with municipalities, individuals and businesses to develop cooperative strategies for meeting common needs in managing, reducing and recycling solid waste.

Reduce Paper Use in Your Organization Case Study:  How to Save Money, Time, and Trees
A two-page paper by Dan Ruben of WasteCap of Massachusetts explains how to minimize paper use in your organization.

Solid Waste Solutions (SWS)
SWS is a national waste and recycling consulting group that works with clients to
reduce waste costs, improve recycling and increase operational efficiencies.  They
can evaluate your trash and develop a customized solution to reduce your costs and streamline your waste handling operations.  SWS has helped hospitals reduce their waste costs between 30% - 70%.  They can work on a fee basis or by "Shared Savings" where they only earn money if they save you money.

Waste Reduction Activities For Hospitals
The California Integrated Waste Management Board’s fact sheet for hospitals shows that waste prevention can help a hospitals bottom line and the environment. All activities within have been implemented in some U.S. hospital or provided by a medical professional. Topics include solid waste composition in hospitals, custodial services, purchasing, patient care supplies, cafeterias, med/surg supplies, offices, landscaping, hospital-wide reuse, recycling unpreventable waste.

Waste Reduction Case Study:  He Doesn’t Take “No” For an Answer
A 2-page case study by Dan Ruben of WasteCap of Massachusetts about how a facilities manager guided Radcliffe Institute to a 72% recycling rate.

Waste Reduction: (H2E tools/resources)
Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) provides tools and resources that can help you reduce solid waste at your facility and decrease the environmental impacts of health care.

WasteCap Resource Conservation Network
The WasteCap Resource Conservation Network (ReCoN) is an initiative of the Business & Industry Association of New Hampshire. Their goal is to help businesses save money and conserve natural resources by providing free, confidential assistance in reducing solid waste, conserving energy and water, and preventing pollution.

COMPUTER / ELECTRONICS RECYCLING:

EIA Consumer Education Initiative for Electronics Recycling
The Consumer Education Initiative is a program developed by the Environmental Issues Council of the Electronic Industries Alliance. Its purpose is to inform consumers about recycling and reuse opportunities for used electronics. You can find reuse and recycling programs listed by state.

EPP Procurement Guidelines for IT Equipment in Health Care: Bid Development
This fact sheet from Health Care Without Harm and Computer Take Back Campaign is a guide to evaluating bids and proposals while incorporating environmental and public health criteria and accompanies their "Healthier Choices for Electronic Equipment" document.

GreenPC
GreenPC provides a global technology disposition solution for corporations seeking environmentally friendly disposition of technology, secure data and information removal, a market value return for technology assets and the elimination of storage and inventory cost.  

Healthier Choices for Electronic Equipment
Health Care Without Harm's and H2E's fact sheet provides healthcare facilities with information to manage IT equipment in an environmentally-responsible way from procurement to end-of-life.

TechSoup, The Technology Place for Non-profits
TechSoup has compiled a comprehensive body of information to promote computer recycling and reuse. They provide resources for those who would like to donate hardware, acquire recycled hardware, and to refurbishers.

What can you do with your old computer equipment?
The U.S. EPA has compiled information to facilitate the reuse and recycling of outdated computer equipment.

Wuf Technologies
Wuf recovers, recycles, and captures the value in surplus computers and other electronic equipment. They can help you set up in-house recycling procedures, identify safe and environmentally sound material end markets and select transportation options for this used equipment.

INKJET / TONER CARTRIDGES:  

RecycleFirst
Recycle First offers environmentally friendly fund-raising solutions.  Recycle your cell phones, empty inkjet and laser cartridges and sponsor a local school or charity. 

OTHER RECYCLABLES:

Biodegradable Organic Waste Composting

NSI™, Nature's Soil Incorporated of Nashua, N.H., provides a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly waste disposal system for biodegradable organic waste. Its in-vessel composting technology offers an innovative alternative to traditional waste disposal.

Grease/Oil Outlets
The NH Department of Environmental Service's Septic Program provides a list of grease and oil disposal companies doing business in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts.

Rechargeable Batteries
The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) can help you recycle your portable rechargeable batteries such as Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd), Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), Lithium Ion (Li-ion) and Small Sealed Lead* (Pb).  Learn how to recycle batteries used in heart monitor machines and other hospital equipment.

GOT A QUESTION? Ask Your Peers:

NH3E Listserv: Got a question about waste reduction, finding mercury-free substitutes or recycling that oddball item? Use the NH3E listserv to bounce these and other environmentally related questions off your counterparts at other New Hampshire hospitals You can also share information, news and announcements of upcoming events that would be helpful to folks across the state. The address for this moderated listserv is nh3e@lists.healthynh.com. If you're not already on the mailing list and would like to be, contact Debbie Augustine at daugustine@nhha.org and she'll get you added on.