Five Questions for … Christine Collins, Operating room nurse, Kaiser Permanente Roseville (Calif.) Medical Center
Feature Story
Five Questions for … Nurse Christine Collins, Creator of ‘Blue Wrap’ Recycling Program
October 5, 2010
It’s a Wrap
When operating rooms replaced cloth with disposable “blue wrap” in the early 1980s, Christine Collins thought the new material seemed practical. Soon, however, it started to drive her crazy. “I hated to see so much waste every day,” she said. The blue wrap — used to cover, wrap and store sterilized equipment and to outfit nurses and surgeons during operations — feels like soft paper, but is actually made from heavy-duty polypropylene plastic.
Collins, an operating room nurse for the past 26 years, decided to take action. She did some research and found that hospitals in Oregon had been recycling the blue wrap for more than a decade. She located the company that recycles the wrap and, with help from Scott Vaughan, environmental health and safety specialist at Kaiser Permanente’s Roseville Medical Center, she launched a blue wrap recycling program at her hospital in May 2009.
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When did you first become interested in environmental issues?
I’ve always collected cans and bottles for recycling at home, and I’ve recycled my family’s clothing for years. But the blue wrap recycling project has really increased my awareness of the environment. It’s been a real eye opener about how much we waste each day.
How did you get the idea to recycle waste from the OR?
Five or six years ago I started talking with another nurse about the waste and how it was starting to really bother me. At the time I wasn’t aware that the blue wrap was a plastic — I thought it was paper. Not too long after that, my nursing colleague Gloria Heaney brought me an article about how they were recycling it in Oregon.
I was determined to make it happen and I approached our facility’s green team. Scott Vaughan, who leads the green team here, found a buyer for the plastic. All we had to do then was collect the wrap in the OR.
How have your colleagues reacted to the new system?
The staff is just fantastic. Everyone, including the surgeons, is aware of it and they like it. It’s spreading to other hospitals too. We’ve started it at a Kaiser Permanente’s facility in Folsom and at another in Sacramento. My goal is to go talk to other hospitals to tell them how easy it is to do. It keeps growing. So far, we’ve recycled over 10 tons of the blue wrap and we average 2,500 pounds month. Just the idea that we’re getting all of that out of the landfill is really exciting.
Do you see a link between your job taking care of patients and your concern for the environment?
Yes I do. The same passion I feel for taking care of people and providing care for them is really the same passion I have for this project. I think that’s why I’m so passionate about it. Nurses really want to help. We’re made to help.
What else can hospitals do to reduce waste coming from the OR and other departments?
There’s so much we can do. We’re now trying to capture all the clean plastics that are thrown in the trash from the OR. This includes bottles that contain sterile water and saline, plain IV bags and outer wrappers, to our packs that our drapes come in. We have items that come in hard plastic containers where you pull back the paper on the top. Those are really high-grade plastics.
Our buyer said that if we can collect enough plastics, they will supply the location for it. The key is to make it easier for everyone to recycle. This is still a work in progress.
Additional Information:
- Practice Green Health: Waste Reduction
- The Sacramento Bee: Kaiser recycles more hospital trash
