Going Green

Heathfield Vets Are Going Green!

Over the last few months we have been striving to make our practice more environmentally friendly.

This can be a difficult task for any medical practice where clinical hygiene must come first.

Where possible we have changed our products and our practices to more environmentally sound options, without compromising on patient care; even the smallest changes can add up to big differences for our planet.

Here are a few of the changes we have made:

Reducing the use of ‘single-use items’ such as incontinence pads and instead using towels which can be washed or newspaper for smaller animals.
We are researching and testing ways to further cut down on single use items with new products on the market.
Using less plastic across the practice, reusing and recycling when we can.
We have made our whole team aware of what can be recycled from the foil wrappers on suture materials to the non-sticky part of post-it notes.
Finding innovative ways to re-use items which can’t be recycled. Drip bags can be re-purposed as water proof boots for paw injuries or made into comforting hot water bottles for patients in the hospital.
We are testing ways of re-using other waste items, we’ll let you know how we get on!
Moving to become a paperless practice with more online options.
Also Gerald one of our vets uses our shredded paper on the compost heap! Let us know if you’d like any for yours!
Using bio-degradable products (such as gloves) and eco-friendly items with less packaging.
Avoiding sending packaging to landfill. We try to find new homes and uses for the polystyrene boxes we have our frozen food/refrigerated medications delivered in.

Eventually we would love to become plastic free, we’ll keep working on it in the meantime!

Watch our Facebook posts to see more ways we’re becoming a green practice.

Visit the Heathfield Vets Facebook Page.

From all the team at Heathfield Vets.