Mass. General totes up its waste in a move to tackle climate change
Some 14,000 tons of waste is generated every day at hospitals and other health care facilities around the country, roughly a quarter of it plastic.
On an August Thursday in 2021, deep into the pandemic, two Massachusetts General Hospital doctors stood gowned, gloved, bootied up and ready in a retrofitted lounge on the 21st floor of Phillips House, a 20-single-room, inpatient area with sweeping views of Boston, the Charles River and neighboring Cambridge.
Just after 3 p.m. cleaning staff, who usually wheeled the floor’s trash to a collection area, instead took their haul to the lounge, where the floors, walls and heavy antique furniture had been cleaned, covered and taped off — a process that in itself took three people roughly two hours.
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