Mater Dei Hospital has won this year Environment Award for Industry in the category of Conservation for Sustainable Development.
These awards, launched by the Cleaner Technology Centre, are designed to recognise and promote organisations that have made a significant contribution to environmental protection last year. The adjudicating committee consisted of experts from various sectors.
Mater Dei Hospital was recognised for its adoption of a holistic programme earmarked to consolidate the newly operational building engineering processes geared with environmental protection in mind.
Last year, Mater Dei Hospital started using various environmental friendly features which were included in the design phase. These include double glazed windows, energy saving lamps and electronic ballasts for fluorescent tubes and motion sensing detectors in many areas to automatically switch on the lighting fixtures.
Rain water is collected separately and channelled to an apposite soaking reservoir, which recharges the Wied Ghollieqa Valley water aquifer by percolating into the valley bed rock to sustain the water table. Grey water, from wash basins and showers, is treated and the resulting water used for irrigation purposes of its soft and hard landscaping throughout the hospital.
As from 2008, all hospital wards had easy access to a newly introduced colour coded recyclable waste wheeled bin for the collection of recyclable waste from clinical areas.
As a result, Mater Dei Hospital staff managed to regularly recycle tons of packaging cardboard, paper and plastics and the amounts of clinical waste collected per day has decreased.
A significant reduction in water was achieved through the introduction of a waterless system for hospital cleaning. Concurrent with this Mater Dei Hospital concluded its hard and soft landscape environment upgrade in order to furnish its original green village concept, and thus make its environment more appealing to the internal and external stakeholders.
The management award for sustainable development, which aims to recognise and promote organisations that have based their management systems on the requirements of sustainable development, was jointly won by General Soft Drinks Co Limited & Medichem Manufacturing (Malta) Limited.