Curtains for hospital landfill waste

Hospital curtains set for landfill are being given a new lease of life – as fenceposts and veggie gardens.

Hundreds of plastic hospital curtains are used throughout Wairau Hospital every year.

Now Nelson Marlborough District Health Board have teamed up with a recycling company to ensure the old curtains get a fresh start.

The successful trial means other hospitals are now also looking at doing the same.

Revealing the news on social media, the health board says the trial started last year.

“Last year though, we partnered with Endurocide and Future Post to trial recycling our hospital plastic curtains.

“The polypropylene fabric is bundled up and sent to Future Post’s Auckland site, where they shred and melt the plastic before extruding it to make fenceposts and veggie garden boxes.”

“When our current hospital curtains have come to the end of their two-year life around hospital beds, it will be nice to think they will end up in some peaceful pasture doing a good job looking after livestock.”

Auckland-based recycling firm turn domestic and commercial plastic waste into other products.

Plastic curtains used around hospital beds for privacy and to help stop the spread of infection, are replaced every two years. Waste plastic is ground and flaked into a consistent form ready for processing.

Manufacturers say that unlike standard wooden fence posts, the plastic version is impenetrable by water and won’t split, crack or rot.

Some of the posts are also turned into raised veggie gardens.