The American Hospital Association in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have agreed to advance pollution prevention efforts in our nation's healthcare facilities, including:

• Eliminating mercury-containing waste from healthcare facilities' waste streams.
  
• Reducing the overall volume of waste (both regulated and non-regulated).
• Identifying hazardous substances for pollution prevention and waste reduction opportunities, including hazardous chemicals and persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic pollutants.

"Specifically, hospitals must reduce their medical waste by 50% from 1998 levels by the year 2010. Practice Greenhealth pilots this initiative and has slated that recycling is one of the best ways to minimize medical waste."—AHA, EPA Memorandum of Understanding.