NNUH ward reusing plastic to help build classrooms

Buxton Ward is leading a push to reuse plastic at the NNUH.

Senior nurse Amelia Whiting and the Buxton Ward team are creating ‘Eco bricks’ from waste plastic and packaging from their daily clinical tasks, which is being compacted into two-litre bottles.

These bottles are being dropped off at Reepham High School to help build a new classroom.

Amelia initially came up with the idea back in July as her children attend Reepham. She began making eco bricks at home and was surprised to see how many bottles worth of plastic she was collecting.

Amelia says: “As you can imagine, everything coming in to the hospital comes in plastic. The packaging we have just from antibiotics and bed linens alone is massive. So much plastic was just going in the bin and to a landfill.

“We have cardboard boxes around the ward that everybody fills with their excess plastics, then when anybody has got a spare moment, we are stuffing it into the bottles. And everyone is bringing in the bottles from home.

“We are filling nearly a bottle a day, around five to six a week. We started back in July and have filled about 60 already.

“The cost implications for the hospital could be positive too if more of the hospital got involved. It costs to obviously send plastic to the landfill, so we could save money there. Also, we’ve noticed people are making more of an effort with paper too. All plastic that has paper on it use to just be thrown in the bin, now there’s a conscious effort to separate it. Therefore, not only are we recycling all plastic but also recycling more paper too.”

If you’d like to find out more about the Eco Bricks scheme, you can contact Tina, a representative of Eco Bricks on 07976 007990 or tinamcgrane@rocketmail.com. Or you can visit the Eco Bricks Facebook page.