For Immediate Release
Mercy Nixes Styrofoam and Launches an Ever-Expanding Green Jubilee
Oklahoma City—If Mercy’s Foundress Catherine McAuley
had sipped a cup of tea in a Styrofoam cup on September 24, 1827, the
day the first house of Mercy opened in Dublin, Ireland, it would still
be intact today. Catherine and the Sisters of Mercy have long had Mother
Earth in mind, and that heritage is the push behind Mercy continuing to
go green.
In celebrating Mercy’s 181-year-old heritage this
week, Mercy will launch a hospital-wide recycling program with some 350
blue recycling bins throughout the main hospital. In addition, more than
2,400 Mercy co-workers will receive reusable shopping bags this week in
an effort to encourage co-workers to be good stewards of the earth.
“Just our house-wide recycling program is going to
have a positive effect on our community considering that on any given
month, the main hospital goes through some 15,000 soda cans,” said Jeff
Johnston, Mercy’s chief operating officer. “And while we are launching
the recycling program this week, we have been leading the nation in many
of our green efforts for several years. Since the early 1990s, more than
20,000 pounds of Mercy’s cardboard is recycled every month, saving our
local landfill unimaginable tonnage over the years. We even recently
hired a nationally recognized firm to perform an energy audit so we can
uncover better ways for Mercy to conserve energy.”
Here’s just a short list of how everything is
turning up green at Mercy:
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Mercy was recently recognized by the American
Society for Healthcare Engineering for reducing energy intensity by 15
percent.
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Mercy has gone green with cleaning
chemicals—providing the healthiest environment to breathe for both
patients and co-workers.
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Mercy has switched from Styrofoam plates, bowls
and take-out containers to a 100 percent biodegradable product (and when
you consider that on any given month, Mercy uses 5,500 plates, 6,000
bowls and 10,000 take-out containers, the change is a major relief to
our local landfill).
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Paper recycling is on the rise at Mercy,
increasing from 7,000 pounds in May to more than 30,000 pounds in July.
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New paper towel dispensers have been installed in
all public restrooms in the main hospital. With the change from rolls of
paper towels to precut paper dispensers, Mercy has already seen a
30-percent reduction in paper usage.
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Mercy has employed a full-time recycling
technician to coordinate recycling efforts.
Press release dated: September 22, 2008
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