WastED - A Waste and Recycling Podcast by SWACO
WastED is a waste and recycling education podcast from SWACO. Hosted monthly by Joe Lombardi and Hanna Greer-Brown, our guests offer insights into regional efforts helping to push sustainability forward as well as sharing their perspective on the next big GREEN thing for central Ohio. Between a few laughs plus genuine and substantive conversation, each episode features takeaways about proper disposal that will have listeners recycling right in no time. Find us on Spotify, Apple Music or wherever you listen!
WastED - A Waste and Recycling Podcast by SWACO
Turning Waste Into Company Culture, Associate Buy-in and Healthier Communities
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Your office might have recycling bins, but how can your organization turn sustainability into culture and better health outcomes? Here's how! Hanna is solo for this episode and digs into that very effort with Michael Ferrara of ANS and Terri Scannell of Ohio Health. Michael shares how a simple audit in their Columbus office uncovered a broken system, and how SWACO’s Business Recycling Champions Program helped them create the hauling, building, and stakeholder coordination it takes for a recycling program to truly work.
Then we shift to healthcare sustainability with Terri where environmental stewardship is inseparable from patient care. We walk through OhioHealth’s focus areas: less waste, responsible procurement, healthy buildings, green transportation, and smart energy and how SWACO is supporting those endeavors through its grant programs.
We also go deeper on the subject of hospital waste management, including a bold goal of zero food waste to the landfill. Terri explains how a food digester works, how it reduces methane from landfills, and improves workplace safety by eliminating heavy lifting. We close with two surprising areas where hospitals can cut impact fast: reducing wasted nitrous oxide (a high global-warming-potential anesthetic gas) and upcycling blue wrap to keep single-use plastics out of landfills too.
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Welcome And Guest Introductions
SPEAKER_02Welcome to Waste Ed.
SPEAKER_01A waste and recycling podcast by Swaco. Welcome to our August episode of Waste Ed by Swaco. Whether you're a nonprofit healthcare system or for-profit engineering firm, environmental stewardship can create benefits for businesses, employees, and communities alike. I'm your host, Hannah Greer Brown, and for this month's episode, I'm joined by Terry Scannell, Principal Advisor for Sustainability at Ohio Health, and Michael Ferrara, Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff at ANS. Welcome to you both. Thanks, Hannah.
SPEAKER_00Hi, Hannah. Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's start with a broad question.
What Sustainability Means At Work
SPEAKER_01Sustainability has become a major priority across so many industries. What does it mean within your organizations? Terry, you want to start us off?
SPEAKER_02Sure. So at Ohio Health, we think about sustainability through three lenses: stewardship, health, and safety. We're a nonprofit healthcare organization. So being good stewards of the resources entrusted to us, we're in the business of health, and we're a system grounded in safety. So we want the way we operate to support healthier people, healthier communities, and the safe delivery of care. For us, sustainability is about stewardship, health, and safety built into how we operate.
SPEAKER_01That's so important. Michael, what about at ANS?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for us, uh, I think sustainability also shows up in a few different ways. First and foremost, it's really the work that we do. Um, a significant part of the ANS's business supports renewable energy, utility, scale, solar, and power infrastructure. So there's just a natural connection to the energy transition and sustainable generation of power. Um, and then it also is just how we look inward and make practical choices of how we operate ourselves. And I think, you know, as we talk about it, recycling initiatives where we work with Swaco, it's a really good example of how we want uh to behave as employees.
SPEAKER_01And I know you're joining us virtually today, and I really appreciate you making time for us. Uh, I also know um we only have you for a little bit of time today, so I want to um take a moment to kind of talk about some of the work that ANS is
When Recycling Still Goes To Trash
SPEAKER_01doing. I know you recently completed Swaco's Business Recycling Champions Program. And through that, you helped to influence additional recycling efforts through the Brewery District Owners Association. So tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00Well, first of all, thanks for letting me call in here. I had to do some travel out in Phoenix and wish I could be there in person with you. But uh as far as the Swaco Business Recycling Initiative, it um it really started pretty organically for us. Um we have a Columbus office in a brewery district, German village. They realize, you know, we have bins that are labeled for recycling and for trash. And we've actually been taking the initiative to separate and recycle and do trash and thought we were doing the right thing, but ultimately we learned that it was all just going into the trash anyway. So it just didn't feel consistent with the work that we do and uh and and who we are. And um, you know, so a couple of people in our team took that initiative, tried to find a solution, and that's how we ultimately met Swinco and worked with you guys to get that fixed.
SPEAKER_01ANS's completion of the Business Recycling Champions program was really the first champion designee in the brewery district. So kudos to you guys for being a leader in that regard. Um, I'm curious, as you went through that process, what were some of the lessons learned?
SPEAKER_00Maybe one of the biggest lessons was that something that seemed as simple as recycling is actually more complicated than you than you think. Um it's not just a matter of putting something in a recycling bin and poof, it happens. Um, there's building coordination, there's hauling logistics, making sure there's a whole system behind it. Uh so it can feel a little bit daunting at first when you want to do something good and then you start digging into it and you realize, wow, there's a lot more involved than I thought. So for us, that was when we were when we had the right partner, you know, really helps. And we were able to connect and meet Swaco. And, you know, you have the experience, the resources to help us really navigate the pieces and make it more manageable. So I think the biggest lesson to learn is what seemingly is simple is actually a multifaceted, daunting problem. But if you have the right people helping you out, you can get to that solution that you're looking for.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Yeah, there's so much that goes into being able to set up a sustainable recycling program for long-term success. So um, what tell us a little bit about the impact that the participation in the brewery district owners association has had on spreading sustainable practices.
SPEAKER_00When we first started out to solve this problem, we were just thinking about it in our own four walls, in our office. We didn't go in with grandiose plans of making a more of a broad, broad-serving initiative and never intended to be something that impacted the brewery district. Um, I don't even think the people who on our team wanted to spearhead this initiative knew there was an owner's association of a part of our building. They were just going into office every day and it's owned by some landlord. You don't you don't really know beyond that. Um, we were just simply just trying to figure out how we can get recycling in our building. But as we started to get further and further into it, it became clear that there were more pieces involved, more stakeholders involved, and the solution extended beyond just AS. Um, and it led to broader conversations, almost, you know, collecting our thoughts and pitching to this owner's association across the district
The Hidden Logistics Behind Recycling
SPEAKER_00and help raise awareness of what we're trying to do here. And, you know, it's a fantastic initiative. Uh, once people heard uh about it, they were on board. And instead of creating just a solution for ANS, it became a share recycling option for all the businesses in that district. Um, so I just say we we weren't really intended for that. It was started as a few employees saying, hey, we should be doing better here. Um, and it ended up ended up having like a really big impact well beyond our own office.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, let me broaden this out a little bit too, because ANS is huge. You have 19 offices across the United States and Mexico. And so have you been able or are you planning to share learnings from your Columbus office with um those locations across the United States?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. You know, as an organization, ANS has grown very quickly. Four or five years ago, there's 20 people. Now we're close to 450. We have 19 offices around the country. So in head count and offices, it's just growing rapidly, and I don't expect it to stop anytime soon. One of the things that's really important to a lot of us and me in particular is that as we grow and expand at this pace, we don't want to lose our culture and our values that got us here. And uh, as part of that, we've set up a program internally called ANS for Good, and it helps us do exactly what you just asked. We have local champions across our office who are organizing volunteer opportunities, philanthropy, other ways for our people to give back to the communities where they live and they work. And some of those efforts are uh very local and driven by matters that impact that specific office, but then other uh efforts are broader company-wide initiatives that we bring everybody together regardless of where you sit. Uh, so sustainability naturally fits into that mindset. It's it's not the entirety of what ANS for Good is focusing on, but it is one of the important pillars that we focus on for our company and our community partnerships. So with local champions and meetings and initiatives and committees that we have as part of the ANS for Good initiatives, we are sharing these things that have happened well across offices. And that's something that our Columbus champions are bringing to the broader company.
SPEAKER_01Well, Michael, before you go, I have just a couple more questions for you. Give our listeners one sustainability win that maybe surprised you or your associates.
SPEAKER_00I think a win for us, it just I think it ties to our people and our culture. We're a professional service business, so our people, their expertise, their talent is ultimately what we sell. And creating an environment where people are proud to work here, believe in that mission, and feel connected to what we're doing is really important. So having these successful initiatives where we're making an impact in our community with the sustainability initiative, it ties into our culture and helps reinforce what we're trying to build here. And that in part just allows us to run a more successful business because people are more bought in.
SPEAKER_02Very similar at Ohio Health. Um, people typically go into healthcare because they care about people. They care about improving the health of the communities that they live in. And so we find sustainability really aligns with that. And uh, we have a lot of folks who see the human health impacts. They also see the impact of their work and they want it to have a positive impact on the communities where we live and serve. And so we find it aligns with one of our stated values, which is stewardship, but also with our mission of delivering high-quality, safe health care in the communities that we live and serve.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Environmental sustainability really does intersect with public health and ensuring the quality of our community. Um, so I appreciate your work and all the work that your colleagues at Ohio Health do. Michael, I know um you're gonna have to jump off here soon. So let me just kind of pose one last question to you. How does ANS measure your sustainability success?
SPEAKER_00For an initiative like this, I think success starts
Scaling Impact With Local Champions
SPEAKER_00with participation and whether it step actually sticks. Um, does it become part of how people operate day to day is a way that we can measure success? I also think what we learn from and how we can apply it across a broader organization is also a success metric. If it's something that works really well in our Columbus office, can we take those lessons, share them with other teams, create similar opportunities elsewhere? And you know, we I talked about the ANS for good initiative. We have that in place for these cross-company collaboration and knowledge sharing opportunities. So a success measure is works well in here in Columbus. If we start branching out and doing it in some of our other offices, that's another success metric.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you so much again for being a partner with Swaco and for joining today's podcast discussion. Um, we hate to see you go, but we know you've got important things to get to. So we will talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me.
OhioHealth’s Sustainability Game Plan
SPEAKER_01Okay, Terry, let's talk Ohio health. How does sustainability align with your mission of creating healthier communities?
SPEAKER_02Well, for us, the connection is really direct. If you think about a hospital, we're often the largest waste generator, water user, energy user, right? So we're a big operation. So we look at how we operate. We look at the waste we generate, the products that we purchase, the buildings we build, and the transportation we support. And the energy we use, and we ask how we can use those things in a way that supports healthier people and healthier communities. So we've organized our work around those five areas: less waste, responsible procurement, healthy buildings, green transportation, and smart energy. So all of them come back to the same principles stewardship, health, and safety. So for us, sustainability isn't separate from our mission of creating healthier communities, it's the way we deliver on it. And it's partnership with Swaco that really helps us deliver on having a you know top-tier sustainability program.
SPEAKER_01I love that. And thank you for your partnership. Um, you started to talk about this a little bit, but um, how does sustainability connect to the patients and the communities that you serve in terms of health health outcomes?
SPEAKER_02Well, there's, you know, there's a lot going on in in that space. And one of the ways that I think environmental responsibility is becoming increasingly important is I'll just give you a little example of what we're seeing here in central Ohio. So things are changing. Um, when Franklin County uh public health started looking at ticks in 2020, uh they identified two tick species um that were of public health importance. And in 2025, that jumped to six. And so last year in 2025, we actually had a really high peak of emergency room visits for tick bites, right? So the community is definitely impacted, you know, in human health ways by how our environment. And um that's what we look at. You know, our physicians are aware of these emerging health risks, and we help patients um understand and protect themselves and take the care that they may need. So for me, that's a tangible example of the connection between the environment and health, and we pay attention to what's happening for the communities we serve because it helps us understand their health, how their health needs are changing. So what happens outside of our hospital walls can ultimately show up inside of them. And we keep people healthy and safe, and that's what we do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you do, and you do it really well. Um, so Joe and I talk about this a lot on our episodes.
Zero Food Waste To Landfill
SPEAKER_01Um, talking sustainability is one thing, but implementing it is something completely different. And you're doing it in multiple ways with another initiative, uh, with what's called a food digester. And I know Swaco helped support you in your endeavor there.
SPEAKER_02You know, in Franklin County, I'm sure you're aware of the statistic, but for everybody that's listening, a million pounds of food waste goes into our landfill every day. Um, and that's the highest source of methane that impacts air quality and that impacts human health. So at Ohio Health, we set a very simple goal. Zero ounces of food waste come from an Ohio Health kitchen to landfill. So we've already set that goal. We're already there. Um, but our food waste uh strategy is not just about a digester, right? Although that's an important part of it. Our first priority is to use food to nourish people. We have an important food as medicine program, right? And we work with the Mid-Ohio Food Collective on that. So we recognize that food plays a role in human health. So we screen for food insecurity, and we may look at food and make sure that we're not putting it to waste, right? That it's being used to nourish people. That's a real priority. I want to be super clear about that. But when you're in a hospital setting, you know, food in a tray goes up to a patient room, that of course cannot be reused. So it's important for us to make sure that doesn't end up in the landfill. And there's a lot of solutions that we use, but digester is the new solution. And thanks to the Suaco Grant, we're gonna be putting a digester at doctor's hospital. And what that's gonna mean is that we are able to keep that food waste out of landfill. And um actually it's a safer way for us to make our commitment of zero ounces of food waste from Ohio Health Kitchen ends up in the landfill.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you for that because you're right. As um as the owner and operator of the county landfill, we certainly are intimately familiar with um that a million pounds of food waste that's coming to the landfill every year. So um tell us a little bit about how the food digester works to keep uh food scraps and um food that's been served but can't be um reserved and hasn't been eaten. How does it keep it out of the landfill?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think of it as an industrial stomach, right? So food waste goes into the digester, microorganisms break them down, the organic material, and then we're able to process that food right where the work is happening before sending it out to composting. It's a really relatively simple technology and it doesn't allow it, we don't have to re-engineer the entire system. And actually it uses cold water, so that's another, you know, energy savings, and then it just goes out as water after those enzymes break down the food.
SPEAKER_01One of the most interesting aspects of this project is that it improves both environmental outcomes, as you've talked about, but also workplace safety. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Um, so again, we've had these food waste goals for quite a time, and one of the things that we've learned is food waste is heavy, right? And so um the composting, we were finding that folks were with the buckets full of food waste, were doing overhead lifts, right, to get it into the compost bin, right? So they're carrying it out, going in a compost bin. And that's a that's a workplace safety issue, right? We don't want to put repeated strain injuries on any of our associates at Ohio Health. So that's one of the reasons that we looked at this, is this you can just in the it's it's in actually our dish rooms. It's gonna go in our dish room. It just goes straight in as the waste is being produced. And so that really stops folks having to go fill up buckets, get heavy, and then take them out to um our compost bins.
SPEAKER_01Okay. What about like visitors to the hospital? If they're there to see someone and they eat in the cafeteria, would their food scraps also um go to the digester or not yet?
SPEAKER_02So right now we're targeting the digester food for uh inpatient rooms and kitchen waste, right? So that's that's where that's going first. But I I want to say though that that retail, we call that the our retail part. And again, we really look at that um to make sure, again, not food that's been served, um, but that's where we really do target to make sure that any of that food that's put out that if it can't be sold, that it is put in um for health and for nourishment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and you're right, food waste is so heavy because it is comprised of so much liquid, just makes it very heavy to deal with. So um I guess looking ahead a little bit, do you see more digesters coming to other Ohio Health locations?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I I think it's a really good solution. Um, and again, it's the compost has been a good solution for us in some areas. So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna expand this um to all of our locations, apart from very, very rural hospitals. We have some um animal feed programs that are absolutely important to that community. Yeah. Uh like Shelby, uh, we have a food waste uh program up there that goes to animals, and we're not gonna stop that. And that makes a lot of sense. And their food waste is so low, but really we're looking at it's certainly when we build new buildings, we're specing um digesters now. And so it's definitely where we're moving towards.
SPEAKER_01So um, if I understand you correctly, in those rural environments, you guys are diverting, still diverting food scraps from the landfill, but you're sending them to maybe a local farm where they're animal feed.
SPEAKER_02Yes, e even more homespun. Okay. Uh it's employees. So the um the gal who runs the kitchen will put it in a freezer, all the food scraps, and then the employee comes down and takes it to her farm.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. Okay, Terry, let's come back to a couple of questions that I asked Michael when he was with us earlier in the episode. How does
Cutting Nitrous Oxide Waste In Hospitals
SPEAKER_01sustainability also create value in a competitive business environment at Ohio Health?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, there's obviously value through efficiency and stewardship, right? Anything we run more sustainably, right, tends to be better, right? Tends to produce less waste. But there's also a competitive advantage that's particularly important in healthcare, and that's people. Um, we want exceptional physicians, nurses, and associates at Ohio Health. And um, I'll explain another waste, right, that we have. And that's with nitrous oxide, the way hospitals are built. Nitrous oxide is delivered through the walls. It's piped, right? And we had a really, we have a really good story of um a resident that came to Ohio Health, and we are now changing the way we deliver nitrous oxide so it's not wasted and it's delivered directly to patients. And this resident has spoken to 150 of our top leaders, and he just says, I it's why I chose Ohio Health because they would let me do a project like this. Okay. Right. So it's super important for us for people to be able to live their values. And this is a way that we're reducing a gas, you know, that we do use for patient care. It's important, but we're really reducing the amount that's wasted. And it has 265 times the global warming potential of carbon. Wow. So those are just great stories that we can tell that really resonate with everybody from our frontline associates, our physicians, and our leaders.
SPEAKER_01So fascinating. I mean, all these things that you guys are thinking about and working on incredibly innovative. I think you gave us uh a win earlier that surprised you and your employees, but let me ask it again. Give our listeners one sustainability win that surprised you.
SPEAKER_02Well, it was actually interestingly on my first call, uh, a first leader's call,
Upcycling Blue Wrap Across Hospital Systems
SPEAKER_02new leader's call at Ohio Health. And somebody mentioned that we have this stuff called blue wrap. And uh, if anybody knows what blue wrap is, you probably don't. Um, but what it is, it's a half plastic, half textile that after we sterilize equipment, we wrap that sterile equipment in this blue wrap to give you an idea of how much we use. We buy and throw away enough to cover Ohio annually. So I was on a call, and this uh one one of our leaders in the OR at Marion said, there's the we're just producing so much waste. And so we worked together and we started making bags out of this waste, and we've got several programs. Then the Ohio Hospital Association heard about it, and so did Swaco, and they partnered to not only expand this to all of Franklin County, but all Franklin County hospitals. So now we have grant funding, and so do all other hospitals here in the Franklin County area. So we're working with all four hospital systems, working with Swaco to keep this out of landfills, and that's important because we've all heard about single-use plastics. Yeah. And that's really gonna create a market to upcycle this, keep it out of landfill, and keep that single-use plastic out.
SPEAKER_01Talk about the power of partnerships. That's incredible, Terry. Thank you for sharing that with us. So tell
Measuring Progress With Certification
SPEAKER_01us a little bit about um through all of these innovations that you're doing, how are you measuring your sustainability success?
SPEAKER_02So we have a lot of ways that we do it. We we measure it internally. We, you know, look at our to our vendors, right? Like we we partner with a lot of vendors locally that give us weights. And um the other thing is we are certified. We are the only hospital system in Ohio that has the Joint Commission Sustainable Healthcare certification. And so we have to keep that measure very, very um tight. And we're being reviewed in January of 2027, right, for our next certification. And that's a really important for us. And we measure, they measure anesthetic gases. So, what are our greenhouse gases related to anesthetic gas measurement? And so we have to measure that. One of their categories is waste, and so thanks to Swaco, they're gonna be helping us reduce that. Um, and then another category is obviously energy use and then transportation. So we work with vendors and partners to measure how we're doing in those categories to make sure we remain certified as a joint commission sustainable health care partner.
SPEAKER_01That's incredible, and good luck to you. We'll be looking for news next year of your uh receiving that uh accreditation again. Well, Terry, thank you for all you're doing at Ohio Health for both great patient and sustainability outcomes. I know it's not an easy job, and Suaco really values our partnership with you and the hospital system. So thank you.
SPEAKER_02Well, we're we're thrilled to partner with you, and I love the way that you'll take an innovation and expand it to make Franklin County healthier.
Final Thanks And Listener Ideas
SPEAKER_01I also want to thank Michael Ferrara from ANS for joining us earlier in the episode. And to our listeners, if you have an idea or a topic you'd like to learn more about, please email us at info at suaco.org or visit swaco.org. Thank you for listening. Until the next time, this is Waste Ed, brought to you by Swaco.