The waste management team at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) has been shortlisted for two categories of this year’s Excellence in Waste Management Awards for the NHS in England.
The awards celebrate inspiring achievements in NHS waste management and innovation – and UHL are in the running for both the waste management team of the year award, and the biggest reduction in carbon emissions from waste category.
The team achieved a carbon emissions reduction of more than 50 per cent between 2023/4 and 2024/5, while reducing clinical waste generation by 5 per cent, and reaching zero-waste-to-landfill status. This also resulted in significant financial savings covering all waste streams.
The achievements resulted from a project which launched in 2023 to review how waste was handled at UHL. This paved the way for actions including new training in waste segregation for colleagues; the introduction of a new offensive waste stream; retendering of contracts; plus the development of a digital dashboard to monitor performance, reconcile finances, and measure compliance in waste segregation.
As a result of actions taken to encourage behaviour change, the number of compliant clinical waste bins in waste segregation increased from 26 per cent in April 2023 to 87 per cent in March 2025, while more than 6,000 colleagues received on-the-spot training on waste segregation, with 122,451 individual bin audits carried out in this timeframe.
With the introduction of new members to the Trust’s sustainability team, next steps include the development of a prevention, reuse and recycling strategy; focusing on furniture reuse; compliance with Simpler Recycling, and piloting various other schemes, in line with NHS Clinical Waste Strategy objectives.
Associate Director of Sustainability, Samantha Stanhope said: “We’re very proud of the many colleagues who have worked so hard to improve the Trust’s waste management processes. This has been a one team approach, with the support of colleagues from infection prevention, clinical teams, domestics, portering and pharmacy – all working towards the same goal of making UHL a more efficient and sustainable trust.”
Gold, silver and bronze awards for each category will be presented at the Royal Armouries in Leeds on Thursday 2 October.