Hospitals are increasingly demanding products with lower environmental footprints, with metrics including water consumption, embodied energy and solid waste. At the same time, the healthcare and life sciences industries are limited in their response by the multitude of regulations surrounding their products. To overcome these challenges requires an understanding of the limitations and the opportunities, augmented by some out of the box thinking. EarthShift Global combines training, guidance, and modeling and improvement skills to empower innovative change. One example of this type of innovative change occurred in the sharps container industry. With a big trend toward reuse of sharps containers, BD wanted to go one step further. The result was a sharps container program that included recycling of the container—contents and all!