HEALTH chiefs have started a green countdown.

They have signed a contract with a waste company to ensure none of their recyclable rubbish goes to landfill sites.

Some of the waste from Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and Calderdale Royal Hospital will be converted to fuel to power industrial centres.

And food waste from the hospitals will be converted to provide methane for power and fertiliser.

Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust has tasked waste management firm, Yorwaste, to deliver the zero waste solution across all its sites.

Under a new three-year contract starting this month, Yorwaste will collect all the domestic waste generated by the Trust with a view to increasing recycling and ultimately ensuring that no waste is sent to landfill.

Domestic waste – including paper, aluminium, glass and plastic – accounts for about 65% of the Trust’s waste.

This is in line with the Trust’s policy to improve its environmental performance and lower its carbon footprint.

Sue Scholefield, waste and sustainability manager at the Trust, said: “The Trust has an excellent track record in recycling and saving energy and this partnership takes that even further so we ensure we recycle all of our domestic waste.

“Staff are very committed to being a ‘green’ trust and this we can now move forward and work towards zero waste to landfill.

“This will be an exciting time for all within the Trust and we look forward to reducing our C02 emissions and lowering our carbon footprint to zero which will be an excellent achievement and reflects this Trust’s commitment to the environment.”

Zero to landfill is the latest initiatives by the Trust which include:

Installing panels on the roofs at HRI to convert daylight into energy.

Sending aluminium cartons from the kitchen for recycling into metal for the German car industry.

Appointing staff as “waste champions” in all areas of the Trust.

Steve Grieve, managing director of Yorwaste, said: “Working in partnership with the Trust we are looking forward to helping the organisation meet the requirements of its waste policy, which is to increase the recycling of waste and to avoid landfilling.

“With our knowledge and expertise, state-of-the-art processing facilities and excellent partnerships within the waste sector, we are able to offer a zero waste to landfill outcome from day one. Not only is this the best environment option, it is also the most cost-effective.”

Previously most of the Trust’s waste went to landfill, but this material, including glass, plastic bottles, paper, plastic, cans and food waste will now be segregated on site before being collected by Yorwaste and sent for processing.

The waste, which will be collected from sites such as Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and Calderdale Royal Hospital, will initially be taken for bulking to Yorwaste’s transfer station and recycling facility at Low Moor, Bradford.

It will then be transferred to the company’s commercial and industrial recycling facility at Harewood Whin in York, where recycling rates of over 80% will be achieved.

Any waste that is still remaining after this process will then be turned into a Solid Recovered Fuel that can be used in energy recovery.

Food waste will be transported to an Anaerobic Digestion processing facility. These produce biogases which can be used for energy production thereby ensuring a 100% diversion from landfill of the Trust’s waste.