Nurses taking part in a pilot scheme to sort waste helped to save £16,000 a year in one ward at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital.

Claire Smith with the bins

A system to segregate expensive clinical waste from ordinary rubbish by using colour-coded bins has reduced refuse costs in ward 7F by two thirds.

If the same initiative were introduced in all the JR's four medical and seven surgical wards, it could save £176,000 -- which could be ploughed back into patient care.

It would also reduce the amount of clinical waste taken to landfill sites every year, which currently fills about 127,500 refuse sacks.

Dean Raffles, waste manager for the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, devised the scheme because ordinary rubbish, including bottles, flowers and newspapers, was being put into clinical waste bags unnecessarily.

Each bag of domestic waste costs 16p to dispose of. Clinical waste, such as dressings and pads, costs £2.50 per bag, because it is disinfected with heat treatment before being ground up and disposed of.

A survey on 7F in November showed that the ward generated 28 sacks of clinical waste every day, compared with just one sack of domestic trash. The cost was more than £70 a day. By bringing in colour-coded bins for the different rubbish, and removing clinical bins from the side of patients' beds, the ward now has a daily average of nine sacks of clinical waste and six sacks of ordinary rubbish -- costing less than £24 to remove.

It has also helped remove smells from patient areas, caused by old dressings and other clinical rubbish.

Mr Raffles now wants to expand the scheme to other wards in the hospital.

He said: "I am quite passionate about it. This trust spends about £750,000 a year on waste disposal.

"There is plenty of scope to make huge savings which can go back into patient care. At the moment it is money going up in smoke."

The scheme has been backed by staff on ward 7F, including sister Claire Smith, and senior housekeeper Barbara Giles.