Nutritionist Takes Recycling to Heart

Few people take nutrition as seriously as Tamina Carver, Manager of Nutrition Services at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff, California. Carver is well known for being passionate about two things: serving fresh, heart-healthy food in the hospital’s Café Raymond, and creative recycling and conservation. You might say that Carver serves both the hospital and Mother Earth, and does so with great gusto.

On an average day, Carver and her team serve approximately 180 people inside the café, make meals for about 32 patients, and cater for hospital meetings and events.

Carver’s dedication to health goes beyond the food. She sits on the hospital’s ecology committee, which has been honored by Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, and also won a 2005 Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award.

She is passionate about ecology the environment and the café no longer sells bottled water or bottled sodas. Instead, it provides cups and lids made from cornstarch which biodegrades in just 160 days, plus discounts if you bring your own reusable cup.

The ecology committee launched an annual Earth Fair five years ago. Currently, it offers cell phone and ink cartridge recycling.

Carver’s employees are dedicated to recycling and often make crafts from discarded packaging materials to sell at the Earth Fair booth.

“We recycle 98 percent of everything in the department,” she said. The proceeds have allowed them to purchase a composter which is used for salad and veggie scraps, eggshells, coffee grounds, and more.

“If we go back to sustainability, go back to some of the old ways, we can turn this around,” she said.

For more information, visit: redbluff.mercy.org.