Kansas Green Guide Your Bi-Weekly Guide to Sustainable Living

Kansas WasteWise Award Winners Jan. 20, 2012

This week two Kansas organizations were honored with WasteWise awards by the EPA. It is important to celebrate our success! For some background - WasteWise is a free, voluntary EPA partnership program assisting and recognizing businesses, governments and organizations that reduce or eliminate costly municipal solid waste and select industrial wastes, benefiting both the environment and their bottom line. Businesses, local governments and nonprofit organizations of all sizes and from all industry sectors can join WasteWise. Congratulations to the award winners! Hutchinson Correctional Facility State Government Partner of the Year Hutchinson Correctional Facility is recognized as the 2011 WasteWise State Government Partner of the Year. The facility has undertaken a number of initiatives to prevent waste, reuse materials and recycle. In 2010, Hutchinson Correctional Facility diverted nearly 380 tons of materials from the landfill through recycling or waste prevention, representing more than three times the amount diverted in 2009. In 2008, Hutchinson Correctional Facility began a quilting program in which inmates use old clothing to make quilts for the homeless. The program prevented more than two tons of textile waste in 2010. In an effort to reuse old officer boots, Hutchinson Correctional Facility began donating them to a local ROTC branch in 2010. Instead of purchasing new cardboard boxes to pack out departing inmates, the facility reuses existing cardboard boxes. Last year, Hutchinson Correctional Facility worked with the Kansas Department of Corrections to allow all correctional facilities in the state to use existing cardboard boxes as well. The facility has saved more than $5,000 through this program. In addition, it has a crew of inmates that disassembles mattresses from area landfills into their separate components, including wood, cotton/foam and springs, which can then be recycled. University of Kansas Hospital Gold Achievement Waste Reduction in the Workplace With dedication and hard work from the employees on the Green Team Committee, the University of Kansas Hospital has made great strides to receive the 2011 WasteWise Gold Achievement Award for Waste Reduction in the Workplace. Since joining WasteWise in 2009, the Green Team has quickly committed to fulfilling the hospitals commitments to the community and environment through recycling, waste reduction, environmentally preferable purchasing, education and community involvement. At every new employee orientation, the Green Team educates and trains fellow coworkers about sustainability and recycling in the workplace. Through its 2010 waste reduction efforts, the hospitals Green Team was able to prevent and recycle more than 135 tons of waste, resulting in greenhouse gas emission reductions of more than 360 metric tons of carbon equivalent. The hospital has also saved more than $177,000 as a result of its recycling initiatives.
Dissemination of [Kansas Green Guide/Other publications] by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, a governmental agency, is solely for the non-commercial purpose of informing and educating the public. References to specific companies do not constitute a KDHE endorsement. If you have any questions, please contact the Bureau of Waste Management, at info@kansasgreenteams.org.

Kansas Green Guide Jan. 20, 2012