STAFF at a fertility clinic are offering waste and surplus items to Bristol Children’s Scrapstore.
The initiative at the Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine (BCRM) in Aztec West reflects the team’s desire to reduce some of the negative impacts that the healthcare sector has on the planet.
Karla Turner, who is spearheading the green campaign, said: “The whole team is reviewing day-to-day processes to see where it’s possible to prevent, reduce or reuse items.
“Although we are obliged to dispose of most of the clinic’s scrap items as clinical waste, we have identified several areas where we can reduce our contribution to landfill.
“We started off by collecting 10 days’ worth of non-recyclable items that would all have ended up in landfill – polystyrene delivery boxes and cold packs, pipette tip boxes, laboratory needle packaging and the metal rods that form part of the devices used to freeze embryos – and were astonished by how much there was.
“So a very important move has been to forge links with the amazing team at Bristol Children’s Scrapstore who have said they can find a good creative use for the items we are discarding.”
Two of Karla’s colleagues, Jen Nisbett and Corrina Gibbons, have taken the project a stage further by creating a piece of craft-work entitled ‘Blastocyst’, featuring rubber bungs and the tubes in which needles for laboratory work are delivered.
BCRM helps people from throughout the South West and Wales with fertility treatment for both private and NHS patients.
Scrapstore, in St Sevier Street, is a reuse charity dedicated to helping businesses divert reusable waste away from landfill/energy recovery to help improve art and play opportunities for children, young people and adults.