Team names:
The Green Team is made up of a number of pharamcians and pharamcy technical assistants as well as administrative members:
- Geneviève Ouellet
- Denis Lebel
- Christina Nguyen
- Angel Chiu
- Iciar Piaget
- Hélène Roy
- Marie-Élaine Métras
- Myriam Guèvremont
- Annie Lavoie
- Vanessa Jalbert
- Sandrine Moreau
- Jade Larivière
- Jessie Grèves
- Martine Bertrand
- Émilie Roy-St-Pierre
Read about their work:
In 2018, we created a green team in the pharmacy department. We worked with Maillon Vert and focused on three important areas: better waste management, improved paper usage, and better plastic usage. We also started an inhaler project to not only prescribe and use them better but also collaborated with respiratory therapists and doctors. Then, with the infection prevention committee, we established a program to reuse inhalers and finally, with Go Zéro, we began recycling them at the end of 2022.
We initiated multiple actions to reduce medication waste, changed our medication packaging methods, and organized various collections to reduce our use of paper, plastic, and office supplies. We estimate saving over $20,000 annually with our eco-friendly actions.
In the spring of 2023, my colleague Dr. Guillaume Émeriaud and I helped create the Eco-CMDP at CHU Ste-Justine. Following these actions, we have inspired other centers through over thirty presentations to doctors, nurses, schools, universities, and expert panels, including CASCADES in September and SSE in 2020. We have had meetings with influential people like Recyc-Québec, presented at the CSHP conference in April 2024, and participated in an APES podcast on inhalers. We also wrote the “Planète Bleue” column in La Presse last April. I have given talks at pharmaceutical companies to raise awareness about environmental issues in the pharmaceutical field.
We have several ongoing actions and other projects, such as reducing PPE usage and promoting reusable PPE, implementing tamper-evident seals on several products to allow reuse, and supporting various green teams within CHU Ste-Justine. In January, I was appointed as an active member of AQME, invited to the Quebec committee, “Choosing Wisely,” where CASCADES will be present!