Opportunities to save NHS Forth Valley around £260,000 every year have been identified in a waste mapping exercise across seven of our sites – Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Stirling Health and Care Village, Falkirk Community Hospital, Clackmannanshire Community Healthcare Centre, Bo’ness Community Hospital, Bellsdyke Hospital and Lochview.
Food waste is one area where work is already underway, with Zero Waste Scotland supporting the development of a local action plan that will help identify where our food waste comes from and how we can reduce it. It is estimated that making and handling food and the resulting waste costs the health board around £0.5million annually.
In addition, the waste mapping survey also recommended a series of short, medium and longer term actions to reduce waste levels and manage them more effectively. These have been discussed by NHS Forth Valley’s Sustainability Working Group and the next step is to set up new Waste Management Groups at Board and site level to develop waste prevention, recycling and recovery plans.
