A "Green" Operating Room?

I'm on my surgery rotation for the next two months and I've learned the OR is definitely not a place to go if you're on a mission to save Mother Earth. It's important to remember that we can't reuse a lot of things because they can't be re-sterilized and we don't want to spread infection, but I really would love to know how much waste a surgery department produces in a day. Some cases require irrigation to wash inside the abdominal cavity with a water like-solution. Each irrigator requires 8 AA batteries that they cannot reuse in another case! I'm trying to remember to ask the nurses to save the batteries for me, but sometimes it just gets too hectic when turning over the room. It makes me cringe just thinking about all of those batteries in a landfill somewhere. I won't get started on the plastic tubing and such that gets discarded each day...