“Unsexy” sustainability wins you’re probably overlooking 😬🧦
Hey there, I’m Greg.
In our last newsletter, we talked about the importance of hospitals doing their part to reduce healthcare’s carbon footprint — and why linen programs play a bigger role in sustainability than most people realize. We also covered some of the most effective strategies from my upcoming book.
But today, I want to talk about a different side of sustainability: the wins that don’t make headlines.
Let me be the first to warn you: beware of the “sexy” side of sustainability. Too often there is a focus on initiatives that look great on paper and make for good PR — things like solar panels, green certifications, and big-budget marketing campaigns. But here’s the truth: the biggest environmental and financial wins aren’t always the flashy ones.
Let me give you an example
The Sustainability Move No One Talked About
Years ago, my laundry was featured in a newspaper for an innovative “green” initiative. I can still picture the headline: “Clean Hospital Gowns, Clean Planet.” It was all about how we installed a system to capture rainwater for washing linens.
It sounded groundbreaking. People loved it. We won environmental awards.
So what was the problem? Truthfully, it barely made a dent in our overall water consumption.
Meanwhile, another change we made — one that no one outside our operation noticed — had a huge impact: baling and recycling plastic waste from the laundry. The cherry on top? The recycling company gave us the baler for free, installed it for free, and picked up the bales for free.
By implementing this simple plastic recycling program, we cut our landfill waste in half and gave the recycler a steady supply of plastic pellets, which they sold for a profit to a manufacturer of synthetic home decking. It was a win-win for everyone.
And that baler turned out to be useful in another unexpected way.
At the time, our laundry was overflowing with resposable surgical towels — single-use blended towels that hospitals either throw away or mistakenly send to us. They weren’t designed to go back into healthcare circulation, and they were piling up fast.
My then 17-year-old son, who was working in the plant, saw an opportunity. He started knocking on the doors of auto shops, mechanical garages, and cleaning businesses, offering these once-used but perfectly clean towels at a fraction of the cost of new ones.
Customers loved them. Instead of going to a landfill, these towels found a second life. On top of that, the baler the recycler gave us packaged them efficiently for resale.
This wasn’t a flashy sustainability move. But it kept thousands of pounds of waste out of the landfill and created a profitable new product for our laundry in the process.
“Unsexy” Sustainability Moves That Actually Work
Not every sustainability solution requires big capital investments or PR buzz. While I cover many of these in my book, here are a few simple, high-impact moves that make a real difference:
Switching to Synthetic Linens: Imagine cutting your drying time by 60% for 40% of your linens and virtually eliminating pesky lint generation. It’s as simple as switching to synthetic alternatives for your cotton and cotton blend textiles. Synthetic alternatives to cotton and cotton-blend textiles last longer, require less processing time, and reduce energy consumption.
Cutting Linen Usage: Instead of just buying more sustainable linens, hospitals should focus on using fewer linens overall. Better inventory control, staff education, and right-sizing orders can dramatically cut waste, expenses, and resource use.
Investing in Maintenance: Many hospitals default to buying shiny, new energy-efficient washers and dryers. But believe it or not, poorly maintained equipment wastes more resources than outdated models. Regular maintenance, tuning boilers, and optimizing water reuse systems can achieve the same sustainability results at a fraction of the cost.
Final Thought
As I outline in my book, you can easily cut your healthcare facility’s carbon footprint without big-budget projects or media attention. There are lots of smart, high-impact decisions that reduce waste, cut costs, and improve efficiency.
At the end of the day, it’s not about looking sustainable — it’s about actually being sustainable. Some of the best sustainability moves won’t make headlines. But they will make a difference.
If you want to identify simple, high-impact sustainability wins for your hospital’s linen program, let’s talk. Simply reply to this email, or shoot me a message on LinkedIn!
Until next time,
Greg
Compliance Shark