Think Green
As a leading nonprofit health care system, Banner Health believes in being a good steward of our community resources, including the environment.
Our systemwide Think GREEN Program has members from throughout our 23-hospital organization who help create programs that reduce our impact on the environment.
We strongly believe that being enviromentally conscious is the right thing to do -- fiscally and ethically.
Print Smart campaign
Our internal Print Smart program encourages the thoughtful use of printing paper documents to reduce our use of paper, ink and unnecessary equipment.
During our latest No Print Day, we reduced our printing by 13.4 percent -- or:
- 16,021 sheets of paper
- one tree that is one foot around and 12 feet tall
Paper Recycling
In 2010 Banner's focus on recycling paper paid off; our efforts saved:
- more than 16,700 trees
- over five million gallons of water
- more than 4 million kWh of electricity.
Solar Power
Banner Health's $2.5 million solar installation at our Mesa Corporate Center is one of the largest in the Phoenix metro area and is expected to save up to $40,000 over existing energy costs.
Rooftop parking structures covering approximately 46,627 square feet, will shade and protect 260 cars. The electricity produced equates to almost 10 percent of what is used on the Banner Health campus.
Instrument Reprocessing
Our reprocessing program saved more than 90,000 pounds of waste in 2010. It also reduced the environmental impact of manufacturing and transporting new devices.
Reusable Sharps Containers
Banner Health estimates we have cut about 330 tons of potential waste by using reusable containers to hold "sharps'' -- needles, scalpels and other devices since 2007.
Using reusable containers means we avoided buying 487,000 disposable containers, which saves chemicals, energy and resources used to manufacture, package, transport and dispose traditional containers.
Most importantly, the reusable sharps container program has reduced the amount of handling of the containers for our staff -- which reduces the chance for injury.
Other Recycling
Batteries, bulbs, used oil, cardboard and some chemicals are also recycled through our waste vendors. For example, our flammable laboratory chemicals are fuel blended for industrial use.
In 2010, the Banner pharmaceutical waste program diverted 217,386 pounds of pharmaceutical waste from the environment
