MADISON (SPECTRUM NEWS) -- Leave it to UW Health to find a way to turn medical trash into treasure.  It's all thanks to thousands of tiny plastic vial caps that are discarded daily in the hospital's seventy-five operating rooms.  

'We upcycle them, ' Dr. Karin Zuegge said about the tens of thousands brightly colored vial caps.  

’I work in the operating room and we take care of patients and when you are taking care of patients, you open all sorts of plastic supplies,' Dr. Zuegge said.  

Until three years ago, those vial caps would be trashed, but Dr. Zugge found a way to change all that.

'We would just throw them away,' she said.   Luckily the anesthesiologist and her department came up with an artistic use for all that waste.  

Staff all over campus have had the chance to grab their glue guns and get to work on the collaborative art project.  A few times a year, special participation events are held in UW Health's cafeteria.  

’It’s open to anyone and you really get to socialize and get to learn about other people in the system,' UW Health Art Coordinator Mandy Kron said.   The project now boasts three dozen works.

’One of the unexpected benefits about the work is all the recognition and press we have been getting.’ she said.

It includes an article in a radiation therapy journal that features Radiation Oncology's special multi-colored cancer ribbon masterpiece.  

'It represents all the different kinds of cancer that we treat here,' she explained.

Kron hopes one day hospitals across the country can hang something this creative and up cycled in their halls.  

'We could definitely share this with other facilities, so we could get the project there,' she said.

Because the vial caps are hard to recycle, UW Health has partnered with Terracycle.  The company helps the hospital turn what isn't used for art into stacking bins, tools and even toys.