The MERCI project

Nursetogether has an article about MERCI, Medical Equipment Recovery of Clean Inventory, a program developed by Helen French. This program gathers clean medical waste and donates the "waste" to needy areas. The MERCI project's website has more information about what they do.

I love this project. When I worked in surgery, I hated to see good supplies be discarded just because they were "opened". I worked for a physician who would collect this medical waste and ship it to a third world country where they had limited supplies, but not everyone was doing this. I knew of nurses that would collect the suture packs that were removed from their outer wrapper, but that had the inner wrapper unopened and instead of throwing them away would give the packs to Veterinarians to use. What great "recycling" ideas. So, if your facility is throwing away good supplies, look into setting up a MERCI project.