HERMISTON - Good Shepherd Medical Center recycles about five tons of waste each month, from paper to a variety of plastics and cooking oil.

And Friday, the hospital opened its doors to the community to let people shred and recycle important personal documents. The hospital expected to collect at least 600 pounds of shredded paper.

The event attracted local residents, including Terry Cave of Hermiston. He said concerns about identity theft prompted him to drop off old bills and papers containing personal information.

The Hermiston hospital is considering making "Shred Day" a quarterly event,said Ken Gummer, the hospital's environmental services manager.

Gummer said the hospital's professional shredding service, Accu-Shred, also handles the hospitals plastic recycling contract.

Until about a year ago, much of what is now recycled at the hospital wound up in landfills. That changed with a $2,800 grant the hospital received from the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.

The money helped buy a storage shed to hold and sort recyclable materials in large collection bags, Gummer said.

Now, the hospital recycles about 700 pounds of plastic each week and about 3,000 pounds of paper each month, he said.

Much of the recycled plastic is film bags, which hold laundry the hospital sends to Two Rivers Correctional Institution to be washed. Gummer asked the prison to send the bags back to the hospital, where they are bundled into giant collection bags.

The hospital also collects bags the prison receives from five other hospitals it contracts with for laundry services, he said.

Other recycled items include plastic buckets, milk jugs and rigid containers. A third bag collects "bear huggers," which are used to keep patients warm in post-op then discarded. The purple bags are made of high-grade plastic, Gummer said.

The goal is to keep as much as possible out of the hospital's garbage compactor, he said.

Eventually, Gummer said he'd like to see Good Shepherd become a regional recycling collection site for hospitals in the area.

Gummer worked with the Oregon Center for Environmental Health to get the initial grant.

"We see the hospital there as one of the models in Eastern Oregon," said Neha Patel, program director.

Rural hospitals often struggle to find vendors that will accept recyclables like plastics, she said. Initially, Hermiston sent its plastics to Legacy Health System's recycling program in Portland.

Patel said she is writing Good Shepherd's program up in a case study so other rural hospitals across the country can replicate the program.

The hospital also has a exchange program where people can bring in old mercury thermometers for new digital ones, Gummer said.

And the hospital has switched to using environmentally friendly cleaning products. That eliminated cleaning supplies, some of which contained acid or other caustic ingredients.

* Reporter Jeannine Koranda can be reached at 541-567-4459 or via e-mail at jkoranda@tricityherald.com.