Rodrigo Figueroa cringed whenever he saw out-of-order electronics and old office supplies being tossed in the trash. After two years of watching this thoughtless disposal, the clinical customer service coordinator in The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Marburg 2 decided to raise unit awareness of the opportunity to recycle.

There were staff members in the Office of Emergency Management who felt the same way, especially after seeing the kitchenette trash bin fill up daily with used K-cup dispensers.

These two teams—and six others— were recognized with Green Office Certifications during an Earth Day presentation on April 14. The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Green Team created an easy online survey to guide offices and departments with steps to reduce negative environmental impacts in everyday life. A total of 39 offices have achieved this certification over the past two years by doing things like using shared network printers instead of personal printers and implementing recycling containers for batteries, pens, printer cartridges and mixed paper.

While Marburg 2 already had many of these practices in place, Figueroa and his co-workers stepped up their e-waste recycling for old phones, electronics and other office supplies. He also created a board in the break room for updates on recycling and other sustainable measures.

In the Office of Emergency Manage­ment, a new battery recycling tower is already half-filled and paper waste has been drastically reduced thanks to a new scanner and emphasis on e-files. “It doesn’t look like much, but it adds up,” says project analyst Penny Pearce. She personally started making her morning coffee with reusable K-cup filters, in a travel mug, of course.

Kenneth Grant, vice president of general services for The Johns Hopkins Hospital, says sustainability is a “very important movement that is catching on” hospital-wide. Between fiscal years 2010 and 2016, recycling increased from less than one percent to 17 percent, and medical waste has been reduced by more than 22 percent. Grant’s office oversees the hospital’s sustainability efforts.

The nutrition department has been hard at work to incorporate sustainability efforts including using only sustainable seafood, antibiotic- and hormone-free poultry, and cage-free eggs. They buy local produce year-round and recycle produce food scraps with a food digester. Culinary Operations Director Jake Fatica, who has led the department’s sustainability efforts for the past eight years, says that since the food digester was installed in 2014, it has prevented nine tons of food waste from ending up in landfills each year.

At the Green Team’s Earth Day event, guest speaker Linda Bilsens from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance spoke about another sustainability measure, composting, which she emphasized doesn’t require a great deal of space to do.

In 2016, her backyard garden and com­post system in northeast Washington, D.C., received a surprise visit from for­mer first lady Michelle Obama during a neighborhood garden tour to kick off the Let’s Move! initiative. Bilsens’ homemade compost system processes food scraps, flowers, plants and herbs, which produce nutrient-rich soil that is then put back into her garden.

From a health care standpoint, com­posting improves the immune system of the soil. But the benefits don’t stop there.

• Composting decontaminates soil. It can filter out urban storm water pollut­ants, including heavy metals and other toxins, by an astounding 60–95 percent.

• It won’t smell if you do it right. Meats, dairy and other oily items aren’t meant to be composted, so when they are, they create foul odors that in turn attract bugs and vermin.

• Half of the average household gar­bage set out at the curb is compostable. Think about how much trash you could cut down on each week by composting!

Bilsens’ top tip: Check out your local farm to see what composting measures they use. Home composting can be a big endeavor, so start small by taking care of a plant and then build up from there.