Kevin’s Vision for a Plastic-Free Future
Kevin Chidlow, Category Tower Director for NHS Supply Chain: Hotel Services recently wrote a blog about his vision for a plastic-free future within the specialist buying function and its importance to the NHS.
His vision is that the Hotel Services Category Tower endeavours to completely remove single-use plastics, and replace them with sustainable alternatives across all of its categories.
Where they can’t, they aim to support the reduction in the use of these products in the NHS, and incorporate as much recycled plastic within their manufacture as possible.
There are a few key obstacles that need to be overcome for some products as it’s still quite difficult to accelerate the removal of plastic or polymer completely – for example aprons are made entirely of polymers and are intended to be used once and then disposed of.
However, there are innovative developments in the market for products of this type, such as biopolymers; polymers made from plants.
Developing a sustainable solution for all categories is something his Category Tower is fully committed to doing.
NHS Supply Chain has quite rightly made it a fundamental requirement to concentrate on the full detail of sustainable features and is truly bringing it to the forefront. I’m pleased to see more prominence being put in this area and to see an organisational commitment to avoid continuing with this in the future.
Kevin Chidlow, Category Tower Director for NHS Supply Chain: Hotel Services
Useful Links
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Delivering Health Sustainably
Find out how we are supporting the NHS to be Net Zero by 2045.
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Hotel Services
This category page includes links to frameworks, publications, and savings including Price Ranking.