The Medical Equipment Recovery of Clean Inventory (MERCI) program began at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center Operating Room in 1991. Helen French, RN, developed the program in response to a formal review she conducted of high incineration weights in the OR. MERCI is a total waste management program that yields significant volumes of clean medical supplies that can be directed to productive use instead of being destroyed. French built it from a small, pilot exercise into a national exemplar of efficiency and service. The work of recovering, sorting and diverting clean medical supplies began in 1992. University of Virginia students began volunteering in 1993 and numerous other elements of the Charlottesville community became involved in support of the program. In 1995, French was authorized to spend 20% of her time working solely on MERCI. During the first three years of operation, supplies were diverted back to the Health Center, to the Charlottesville Free Clinic (11,049 pounds), to a humanitarian mission group in Russia called Helping Hand (31,278 pounds) and to numerous other local providers and international service organizations.

French developed sophisticated procedural guidelines for in-house management of medical supply waste, secured the resources for increasingly complex and far-reaching transportation and distribution logistics and created a network of donors, recipients, volunteers and professionals who became part of the MERCI supply chain. The program has been recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. It was approved by the Virginia General Assembly in 2003 through House Resolution #42 as a model for all Virginia hospitals. Between 1992 and 2008, more than 500 tons of clean, reusable medical supplies were delivered to recipients all over the world including, but not limited to, the United States, Ethiopia, Haiti, Russia, India and Cambodia. Although the program received support in hundreds of other ways, it never had a budget. French retired in 2008, but the MERCI program continues to recover several thousand pounds of supplies every week.