Providence Alaska finds that creativity and resourcefulness are key to efforts to reduce emissions and cut waste

August 03, 2026

Providence Alaska finds that creativity and resourcefulness are key to efforts to reduce emissions and cut waste

Providence St. Joseph Health is working toward being carbon negative — or emitting less carbon than it produces — by 2030. The system and its 51 hospitals and 1,000-plus additional sites across seven states are finding that it can be very difficult to pursue this goal.

By tapping into their creativity and resourcefulness, environmental stewardship leaders and associates across Providence have built momentum in achieving large-scale stewardship gains.

The health system's Alaska region has had to be especially inventive in this work, in large part because the state's remoteness makes waste reduction efforts extra challenging.

Darcy Moxon, sustainability manager of Providence Alaska, says creativity, communication and a "community mindset" have been key to her approach to doing all she can to discover ways to reuse all types of materials. She continually communicates with employees throughout Providence Alaska, asking them what reusable items they are struggling to find a home for. She then reaches out to people and organizations locally to see who can use these materials.

A employee browses the on-campus reuse room at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage. The hospital stocks the room with supplies that are no longer needed but still usable.

The Earth's resources "are not infinite, and we need to be smart in how we are using what exists," Moxon says.

Reuse room
In her four years in her role — she is the inaugural sustainability manager for Providence in Alaska — she has helped to find many solutions. She spearheaded the creation of the region's "reuse room" at a Providence Anchorage facility and has evolved it into a self-serve resource where employees can find everything from office supplies, to chairs, to file cabinets, to scrubs.

When Moxon learned local teachers could benefit from the supplies, she hosted a supply day that drew several dozen teachers each of the last two years. Last year, teachers received about 3,000 pounds' worth of items.

She learned that local organizations could benefit from Providence food waste, and now partner organizations pick up that waste and use it for animal feed and garden fertilizer.

She's helped arrange for usable but unneeded medical supplies to go to a Providence education and training institute as well as to an Anchorage university. And she's sent clean hospital laundry that cannot be returned to circulation to local animal shelters to use as bedding.

These are some of the creations featured at the Trashion Show.

'Trashion' show'
Moxon helped develop a particularly creative way to reuse no-longer-needed material through Anchorage's first-ever "Trashion Show" last month.

A couple years ago, Moxon came up with the idea of engaging community members in repurposing unneeded supplies into clothing. She got the idea from another Providence region that had invited colleagues to create clothes from the blue wrap used to protect sterile medical equipment.

Moxon asked the Anchorage Museum whether it would want to partner, given its similar environmental stewardship focus and goals. Museum staff signed on.

The two organizations hosted designer workshops, inviting community members once a month for about a year to take what they wanted from a collection of Providence discards. Moxon facilitated the sessions.

Providence St. Joseph Health’s Alaska region partnered with the Anchorage Museum to hold workshops where community members could repurpose surplus hospital supplies and other goods into wearable art. The outfits were showcased in a “Trashion Show” at the museum.

Providence and the museum then invited the designers to display their pieces in a runway show at the museum June 11. The designers showcased nearly 80 outfits at the event that drew hundreds of attendees.

The designers "blew everyone away," Moxon says. Some of the outfits were for shock value, she laughs, but some were beautifully designed art pieces. "We received nothing but great feedback," Moxon says, "and it was so impressive to see such talent and creativity on display."

With that event over, the museum now is displaying selected outfits in an on-site gallery. Providence may host the collection in August.

Alaska peculiarities
Moxon notes that in general her role and efforts around waste reduction are similar to what her sustainability colleagues throughout Providence do. However, she noted that Alaska has special challenges.

For one, the Alaska region is too far from the other markets to share its reusable items with other Providence facilities. In some cases, even the communities where Providence has sites in Alaska — Anchorage, Kodiak Island, Seward and Valdez — are too far from one another to share such items.

Additionally, recycling is expensive in Alaska because of a lack of recycling facilities, and very limited types of items can be recycled in the facilities that do exist. Much of Alaska's waste is sent on barges to Seattle, so that increases the cost of disposal as well.

Moxon notes that the landfill is by far the cheapest method of disposal, but because of Providence's commitment to protecting the Earth, the system avoids that option to the extent possible.

Moxon says prior to joining Providence, she didn't realize a large organization could be authentic in its sustainability efforts. But, in her role she has seen the health system's commitment up close. "Our CEO at the time I started (now-retired leader Dr. Rod Hochman) said things needed to change ... and I said to myself, I must be a part of this."

Providence's environmental stewardship involves shared responsibility across the system

Providence St. Joseph Health emphasizes the importance not only of strong leadership in its environmental sustainability work, but also of the involvement of all employees, says Beth Schenk, the system's chief environmental stewardship officer.

This is essential, she says, because every one of Providence's 119,000 employees handles materials that in time will become waste.

Schenk says that like virtually all healthcare organizations, Providence's facilities generate enormous quantities of waste. Last year, the total was almost 105 million pounds.

Schenk notes that it can be prohibitively expensive and difficult to dispose of that waste, and waste disposal itself can cause pollution. She says as part of its work toward carbon negativity, the system seeks to divert more than half of all its waste away from landfill and hazardous waste streams by 2030. This includes waste destroyed in autoclave steam sterilizers and incinerators.

Schenk says that waste diversion happens through recycling, composting, reusing and donating as well as by putting in place smart planning strategies that prevent overconsumption of products.

Some of the many methods Providence facilities are using include:

Composting food waste and sharing that compost with local organizations that can use it.
Hosting "reuse rooms" where employees can drop off items they no longer need but that others can still use.
Collecting information technology equipment that employees no longer need but that is still usable.
Facilitating scrubs exchange programs for clinicians.
Finding takers for blue wrap, the waterproof material that many manufacturers use to protect sterile medical instruments until clinicians need them.
Providing unneeded medical supplies to medical missions or to medical schools.
Giving various types of supplies to veterinarians and animal shelters.

Schenk explains that "waste optimization means achieving best-practice waste management across each waste stream at each acute ministry, meeting and exceeding target metrics and segregating waste properly." She adds that such smart waste handling can achieve stewardship, regulatory and financial goals at the same time.

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Providence Alaska finds that creativity and resourcefulness are key to efforts to reduce emissions and cut waste

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