Hospital churns through single use plastic bottles

The figures - which are an increase on the previous year - came despite the hospital recently receiving government accreditation in a business recycling program for its "outstanding achievements in sustainability".

Government data showed Canberra Hospital used 419,316 bottles of water for patients in 2018-19 - an average of 1149 per day.

While Calvary hospital uses mainly re-usable water jugs, Canberra Hospital said the use of water jugs required considerable human and financial resources to ensure their integrity - such as the need to sanitise them.

It said a "considerable number" of water jugs and tumblers had also been misappropriated from the hospital at significant expense.

The hospital estimated it made yearly savings of $141,000 from using bottled water.

But in response to further questions from The Canberra Times, Canberra Health Services said it had just begun a limited trial of refillable water jugs to determine whether it was a viable option more widely.

The trial started on September 2 on the maternity wards and was "progressing well", a spokeswoman said. "Following the trial we will know the impact of this initiative on our work flows and from a health and a work health safety perspective," she said.

"This trial is being undertaken in partnership with the nutrition department."

The spokeswoman said the service actively sought out environmentally sustainable opportunities that decreased its environmental footprint where practicable. Some of those changes included using paper cups instead of styrofoam cups and changing from plastic straws to paper. Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability Shane Rattenbury earlier in the year praised the hospital for its work to divert waste from landfill.

"I am pleased that the hospital is now diverting more waste from landfill - co-mingled recycling has increased by 29 per cent, paper and cardboard recycling is up by 9.8 per cent and organic waste recycling has grown a massive 81 per cent," Mr Rattenbury said at the time.