Every time I go to the dentist I have mixed feelings about all the sterile packaging the implements are wrapped in. I’m abundantly thankful from a health and hygiene standpoint that they are so wrapped, and yet...so much discarded packaging. On that same note, I don’t spend an awful lot of time in hospital operating rooms (yet), so I will take GreenBiz’s word on this:

A hospital may throw away every month 2,500 pounds of a soft blue papery material used to protect sterilized surgical equipment. That ubiquitous blue wrap usually ends up in landfills.

What to do, what to do? Well, one idea was what Kimberly-Clarke Health Care came up with: they hosted a class at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and tasked students to come up with sustainable ways of disposing used Kimguard sterilization wrapping. And they came up with some interesting ways of reusing the material for other things like children’s furniture, disaster relief tents, and other products. As the kids began playing with the material (well, it is sterile after all) applying heat and doing all sorts of other things to it, it sparked their creativity. Pretty cool story—I think we need more programs like that.