Kickstart: Green ICUs and medical waste

Houston Methodist Hospital knows the value of going green.

In 2023, the medical center launched a sustainability effort centered on its intensive care units — one of the most vital parts of its health care operations, but one that also is a big user of plastics, medical devices and energy, Houston Methodist says on its website.

Caring for a single ICU patient can result in the use of 108 disposable gloves, 56 compresses, 34 infusion bags, 16 articles of disposable clothing and eight bed liners per day.

Just one Houston Methodist ICU used more than 1.4 million pieces of medical supplies in a six-month period, the hospital noted.

And while there are many medical plastics that cannot be recycled due to contamination, Plastics News' Sarah Kominek wrote in a deep dive into the topic that the World Health Organization estimates that 85 percent of health care waste is nonhazardous.

Now the medical center's efforts to go green are also getting pink.

Members of the Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council (HPRC) — among them Houston-based Westlake Corp. — recently launched Choose Pink, a pilot PVC recycling program at the outpatient center at Houston Methodist.

The project will set up a collection system for post-patient PVC items such as nasal cannulas, masks, oxygen tubing and saline bags from outpatient procedures. Usually those items would end up in medical waste, but now they will be separated into special bags for collection. The bags will then go to Westlake Dimex, a business unit of Westlake in Marietta, Ohio, that recycles post-industrial PVC.

The nearly 40 members of HPRC have other ongoing projects focused on trays, film, medical device packaging and other waste products in health care, PN's Frank Esposito writes.

There's a gap in workplace morale between managers and staff on the shop floor, according to a new study.

Software company Epicor's new "Future of Work in Manufacturing" 2024 survey shows that less than half — 45 percent — of the workers in manufacturing think there's good morale at their company. However, 57 percent of managers think everything is good.

The study highlights "a potential disconnect in understanding," the company noted in a news release.

The survey of 1,400 manufacturing leaders and 1,200 workers globally is intended to "uncover critical trends and strategies that will shape the industry's future."

In addition to morale, the survey said that while 52 percent of managers considered their workplace "very modern" in 2024, only 39 percent of workers agreed.

And when it comes to sustainability — already on shaky ground with only about half of companies saying they prioritize it — only 45 percent of workers saw it as crucial compared with 61 percent of managers.

Class is now in session for 75 trainees at German machinery maker Arburg GmbH & Co. KG who have joined the company for its 75th year of offering a training program.

The students and trainees from Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University will work out of a 2,000-square-meter training center, led by a team of 20 Arburg employees.

"Providing young people with a solid foundation for their careers is extremely important to us," Steffen Kroner, managing director finance, controlling, IT and HR management, said in a news release.