HackensackUMC was awarded the 2013 “Partner for Change” Award by Practice Greenhealth, the nation’s leading health care membership community that empowers its members to increase their efficiencies and environmental stewardship while improving patient safety and care. The Award is one of the organization’s Environmental Excellence Awards given each year to honor outstanding environmental achievements in the health care sector. The Partner for Change Award recognizes health care facilities that continuously improve and expand upon their mercury elimination, waste reduction, recycling and source reduction programs. “This award proves that HackensackUMC is committed to eliminating mercury, reducing waste, recycling and preventing pollution, among other environmentally preferable practices,” said Laura Wenger, RN, Executive Director, Practice Greenhealth. “Practice Greenhealth is pleased to recognize them for these efforts.” “We take pride in developing programs to improve the health of our patients, staff and community,” said Robert C. Garrett, president and CEO of the Hackensack University Health Network. “We look forward to working with Practice Greenhealth to further our sustainability efforts and lessen our impact on the environment.” “We’ve done a tremendous job of increasing our recycling rate, implementing state-of-the-art recycling stations on campus, eliminating Styrofoam food ware and becoming the first hospital in country to partner with TerraCycle to recycle packaging and items that typically are not recycled and up cycling them into products” said Deirdre Imus, president and founder of the Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center at HackensackUMC. The Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards were presented in Boston, MA, at CleanMed, THE premier national environmental conference for leaders in health care sustainability.