| Dear
EarthTalk: Where does all the medical waste
from labs, doctor’s offices and hospitals go? Does
it just get put in a barrel and buried? Do they dump it
in the oceans? With all the waste that is probably generated,
it would be interesting to know where all those vials of
blood and stuff go.
-- Lee Senat, Haverford, PA
|
Medical
wastes have traditionally been disposed of by the not-so-green-friendly
method of incineration. Today a wide assortment of other
processes, including steam sterilization, chemical disinfection
and irradiation, are in use. Once medical waste has
been decontaminated by any of these alternative methods,
it usually ends up in landfills alongside regular municipal
solid waste.
© Getty Images |
Medical
waste is defined as the “biological byproduct of the
diagnosis, treatment or immunization of human or animal
patients” and includes so-called “sharps”
(needles and scalpels), lab cultures and stocks, blood and
blood products and any other wastes generated from sick
patients or patients with infectious diseases. Such wastes
have traditionally been disposed of by burning, either onsite
at large medical or veterinary facilities, or offsite by
licensed contractors that specialize in handling infectious
materials. In most cases, incineration has been found to
be effective in neutralizing potentially infectious agents.
But
incineration, whether for medical or other purposes, doesn’t
come without its health and environmental risks. The process
generates some highly noxious pollutants, such as mercury
and dioxin. Despite modern pollution control equipment on
smokestacks, some of this discharge becomes airborne where
it can foul the air and end up in waterways. And the incinerator
ash left over after burning is usually sent to local landfills,
where the pollutants can seep into soils and groundwater
if not properly contained.
Given
such problems, many of the nation’s largest medical
waste incinerators have been shut down in recent years in
the face of more stringent regulations promulgated under
the U.S. Clean Air Act. In their place a wide assortment
of alternative methods, including autoclaving (steam sterilization),
chemical disinfection, irradiation and enzymatic (biological)
processes have emerged. Today more than 100 different technologies
are in use in place of incineration. Once medical waste
has been decontaminated by any of these methods, it usually
ends up in landfills alongside regular municipal solid waste.
Most
of us never even thought about medical waste until it started
washing up on beaches in New Jersey in 1987 and 1988 in
an event that became known as the “Syringe Tide.”
The event hit the New Jersey tourism industry hard, costing
it almost $1 billion in lost revenues. It also served as
the basis for Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, “The
Great Syringe Tide” and reportedly was the inspiration
for the line “hypodermics on the shores” in
Billy Joel’s 1989 hit, “We Didn’t Start
the Fire.”
While
there were few if any cases of people getting sick from
exposure to such waste on beaches—medical waste poses
a far greater risk to health care workers than to casual
beachgoers—the events served as a wake-up call to
federal and state governments charged with ensuring public
safety. In response, Congress passed the Medical Waste Tracking
Act (MWTA) in 1988, which classified different types of
medical waste and called for the creation of a “cradle-to-grave”
tracking system requiring medical facilities and waste haulers
to account for the proper handling and whereabouts of the
waste they handled.
Congress
only funded MWTA for two years, but various states have
since enacted their own laws and protocols based on standards
set by the original legislation. Not surprisingly, the toughest
laws are in place in New Jersey and other Northeast shoreline
states.
CONTACT:
Medical
Waste Tracking Act of 1988.
Dear
EarthTalk: The impacts of all the paving that
is done for new roads and parking lots must be considerable.
Other than Joni Mitchell’s “They paved paradise
and put up a parking lot” issue, what else is this
activity doing that will come back to haunt us?
-- Libby Morse, via e-mail
|
In
the U.S. alone, pavement covers some 60,000 square miles,
or about two percent of the nation‚s total surface
area. One out of every 10 acres of arable land is paved
over.
© Jeanne Licari |
The history of
paving dates back to Roman times if not earlier, but our
modern society has taken the practice to the extreme. Originally
conceived as a way to make dirt- and mud-covered thoroughfares
passable, roads (and parking lots) now cover the majority
of urban and suburban areas around the world. In the U.S.
alone, pavement covers some 60,000 square miles, or about
two percent of the nation’s total surface area. One
out of every 10 acres of arable land is paved over.
Beyond larger
issues like urban sprawl and the loss of farmland, paving
itself is an environmental scourge, preventing the natural
seepage of rainwater at the soil surface, and increasing
the volume and speed of water run-off. The result is often
severe soil erosion on adjacent unpaved areas. Also, paving
reduces the total area through which the soil absorbs rainwater,
forcing pollutant-laden run-off quickly to lower ground,
increasing the risk of flooding accordingly.
Another environmental
problem created by our overzealous application of asphalt
is that, because the soil underneath paved areas absorbs
very little water, natural aquifers below can dry up, reducing
the overall amount of potable water available to people,
wildlife and the larger ecosystem. Paving also prevents
the growth of plant life and destroys wildlife habitat.
According to
the nonprofit American Farmland Trust, which works to preserve
farmland and promote healthier farming practices, Americans
lose three acres of productive farmland to new paving every
single minute of every day. The group reports that since
the first Earth Day in 1970, the U.S. has lost more than
40 million acres of farmland to development. With Americans
now spending upwards of $200 million a day building and
rebuilding roads, such problems are only getting worse.
In response to
such concerns, a diverse coalition of 170 community groups,
individuals and businesses came together in 1990 as the
Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (APM), with the goal of
addressing the “tremendous environmental, social and
economic damage caused by endless road building.”
The group charges that our society’s obsession with
paving and road-building draws public funds away from alternative
transportation projects in service to the automobile, destroys
inner cities as it promotes sprawl, fouls the air and water,
contributes to global warming and—because most asphalt
is a product of fossil fuels—plays into ongoing conflicts
in the Middle East.
Jan Lundberg,
a former oil-industry insider and transportation policy
analyst who helped create APM, sees a bright future in putting
less emphasis on paving and roads: “Money would immediately
become available for public transportation and making cities
more walkable. It could also go toward refurbishing existing
downtown buildings so that people could live in them. Parking
lots could be de-paved to make gardens and parks. Cities
can be pleasant places, you know.”
CONTACTS:
American
Farmland Trust; The
High Costs of Paving. |
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