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A Commitment to Our Environment

At Hanging Rock Animal Hospital, our commitment to animals also extends to their environment, or rather, our environment. Animal hospitals generate a lot of waste, but with simple solutions toward “green” initiatives, we’ve been able to cut our waste production by 75%! The Clean Valley Council even recognized our efforts in their “Business Spotlight.”

Our practice continues to make strides in our green efforts. Every step we take falls in line with the American Animal Hospital Association’s recommendations to conserve and protect our world. AAHA encourages animal hospitals to embed environmentally friendly practices into their business philosophy so every layer of the hospital is impacted. We did just that by not only changing the way we do things but our mindset, too.

How We Maintain Our Green Practice

Adhering to AAHA’s conservation philosophy meant a lot of work on our part in the beginning, but now that we’re getting the hang of this, green practices just come naturally! Read on to learn more about ways we reduce waste and support sustainability at our animal hospital.

1. Material Conservation and Recycling

  • We traded in our trash dumpster for a “green” recycling dumpster from Waste Management. Our dramatic trash reduction is thanks to recycling most of the items we would have typically thrown away. You can learn more about recycling here so you can take these practices home with you, too!
  • Our team makes an effort to recycle anything we can in our area. Our green dumpster isn’t the end-all, be-all for recycling! There’s a lot of other materials that require special recycling processes. We work with community programs and other area businesses to get these materials to the proper recycling centers. These items include batteries, light bulbs, metals, Styrofoam and more!
  • We use paper towels and toilet paper by Green Seal Certified EcoSoft. Made from recycled material, these products have no added pigments, inks, dyes or fragrances. They also do not use chlorine bleach or any of its derivatives in processing.
  • Our animal hospital converted all our record keeping to computer format to reduce our consumption of paper.

2. Environmentally-Friendly Products and Equipment

  • We converted both old-fashioned film radiographs to brand new digital ones. The older film radiographs use harmful chemicals, silver and a good amount of water consumption to process the all-important X-rays. Digital radiographs, on the other hand, eliminate chemical consumption, heavy metal contamination and water consumption. As for our old traditional films, we recycled them so that the heavy metals they contain are kept out of the landfills.
  • Light for our animal hospital comes primarily from natural light through our skylights and many large windows.  We also recently replaced our aging fluorescent light fixtures and now utilize high-efficiency Energy Star LED lighting throughout!
  • Solar energy is the way of the future, and we use it extensively to power our hospital!

3. Support of Local Wildlife

Pets aren’t the only animals who need our care. That’s why we support our local licensed wildlife rehabilitators by assisting injured and orphaned wild animals in their return to freedom. The groups we work with include Wildlife Care Alliance and Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center.

4. Going Green!

To learn more about our green initiatives and how you can comply with our efforts and even take some of our practices home with you, please ask us! We are always happy to share our knowledge of “going green!”