Waste reduction

In This Section

Building healthier communities

Hospitals and health care facilities generate a staggering amount of waste each year.

At Kaiser Permanente, we are ensuring safe and environmentally sound treatment of our hazardous and medical waste streams while working to reduce the overall amount of waste we generate through reuse, recycling, or composting. We favor the procurement of recyclable products and encourage the market to create new recycling opportunities.

Waste reduction goal

By 2025, we will recycle, reuse, or compost 100% of our nonhazardous and nonmedical waste.

Our current progress:

In 2020, we reused, recycled, or composted 49% of the nonhazardous waste we generated.
In 2020, we collected more than 45,900 tons of waste for recycling, reuse, or composting.
In 2020, we avoided more than 1,500 tons of plastic waste via our reusable sharps container program.
In 2020, we collected more than 400 tons of medical devices for reprocessing.