LEWISTON — St. Mary’s Health System was awarded the 2014 Greenhealth Partner for Change Award by Practice Greenhealth.

Greenhealth is the nation’s leading health care community that empowers its members to increase their efficiencies and environmental stewardship while improving patient safety and care through tools, best practices and knowledge.

The award is given each year to honor outstanding environmental achievements in the health care sector.

The Greenhealth Partner for Change Award recognizes health care facilities that continuously improve and expand upon their mercury elimination, waste reduction, and recycling and source reduction programs. At a minimum, facilities applying for this award must be recycling 15 percent of their total waste, have reduced regulated medical waste, are well along the way to mercury elimination, and have developed other successful pollution prevention programs in many different areas.

St. Mary’s was recognized for its various green initiatives, including: reducing energy consumption to meet the national guidelines for Energy Star rating; recycling nearly 35 percent of its waste, and implementing a single-sort recycling system to increase that percentage in 2014 and beyond.

The Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards were presented earlier this month in Cleveland, Ohio, at the CleanMed Conference & Exhibition, the premier national environmental conference for leaders in health care sustainability.

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