Now that we are groggily emerging from our hibernation of sitting on the couch in a Snuggie and binge TV watching while eating cookie dough ice cream, it’s time to think about spring cleaning. On second thought, sweeping the garage, sorting old junk, and throwing mittens in a drawer sounds awful – let’s talk about spring greening instead! Here are a few tips for an energy efficient spring and summer: Continue reading
Category Archives: Who’s Greening at UHN
RIP faxed X-rays. Hello rescuing 450,000 sheets of paper!
image credit:”The Realm of Obsolete Technology” By Adam Baron, contemporary prints and posters
Cassette tapes, rotary phones, floppy discs, typewriters and cathode ray tube TV’s … all technologies that Continue reading
UHN: A Medical Innovator, But Also An Energy Innovator
My previous blog described a unique energy conservation project at UHN’s Princess Margaret Cancer Research Tower (PMCRT). With innovative contaminant sensing technology, we were able to convert our research lab exhaust system from constant flow to variable flow, which significantly decreased loading on the exhaust fan motors. As described in the blog, this change produced a reduction in electricity peak demand (kW) of 38.5% and reduction in overall annual electricity consumption (kWh) of 42.7%.
We thought this was a Continue reading
Savings at PMCRT will Blow You Away!
Princess Margaret Cancer Research Tower. Photo Credit
Next in our list of exciting energy endeavors, this blog will discuss huge savings realized by a retrofit to the laboratory exhaust system at the Princess Margaret Cancer Research Tower (PMCRT). The lab exhaust system has been converted from constant speed to demand controlled to ensure more efficient operation. I’ll get into all the super interesting details below, but the best part is the savings so I’ll start off with that. Continue reading
Chiller Thriller: Part 2
Chiller Thriller
With the last moments of warm weather dwindling and Halloween fast approaching, let’s take a look at the Continue reading
One nurse’s story on saving supplies and lives
As you know from last weeks’ post, See It Shine … around the world, one of our favorite kinds of reuse is getting surplus medical supplies to global communities in need. Not only does it help humanitarian efforts, it also helps the environment, diverting materials from landfill (and the landfill fees that are better spent on patient care). That’s a win-win-win in anyone’s book.
UHN News has just profiled Ruth Turner, a nurse at Princess Margaret who volunteers her time to do just that.
Ruth Turner holds a bag of medical supplies to donate to Not Just Tourists. As she spreads the word to other colleagues at the cancer centre, bags like these are often left outside her door from groups that have begun collecting. (Photo: Not Just Tourists)
Let’s GROW!
I am thrilled and delighted to introduce our first wheelchair accessible garden at Toronto Rehab, Bickle Center! We’re calling it GROW, for Garden Rehab On Wheels. A lot of green thumbs and grey matter went into designing this new venture. See for yourself!
This is the stellar Green Team after our first meeting of the season – our gardening champions are from recreational therapy, speech language therapy, nursing, clinical nutrition, spiritual care, volunteer resources, maintenance, management and administration.
The TR Bickle Green Team received funding from TD Friends of the Environment to Continue reading
