Medical Waste

The Problem: Hospital Incinerators Are a Leading Source of Dioxin and Mercury to the Environment

  • The Environmental Protection Agency, in their draft Dioxin Reassessment, fingered hospital incinerators one of the three largest known sources of dioxin to the environment.
  • The EPA's new mercury report also lists medical waste incinerators as the second leading source of mercury to the environment. A Michigan inventory lists the state's hospital incinerators as the third largest source, after municipal incinerators and coal-fired power plants.
  • It's ironic that institutions in the business of healing are unintentionally contributing significantly to the loading of some of the most toxic compounds known.

How Toxic Are Dioxin and Mercury?

  • The Environmental Protection Agency, in their draft Dioxin Reassessment found that dioxin not only causes cancer, but at levels even smaller, may lead to reproductive, developmental and immune system problems. The EPA went on to state that current levels of dioxin already in the environment are close to levels that may cause problems in humans. Dioxin is one of the most potent toxins known to science.
  • Mercury is a potent neurotoxin which is already widespread in the environment. Michigan already has fish advisories for mercury on all inland lakes in the state because of existing mercury contamination.

Michigan Hospitals
Michigan hospitals generate 25,000 tons per year of medical waste, according to a survey recently completed by the Michigan Hospital Association and the National Wildlife Federation. 43% of that waste is incinerated in the 45 onsite incinerators still operating in Michigan. 42% of the total is commercially incinerated, and 15% is disinfected and subsequently landfilled.

Hospitals Are Not Recycling
The same survey also reveals that recycling programs at Michigan hospitals are rare and primitive. While many facilities recycle cardboard and some paper, more than half do not have any recycling program at all. Clearly the health care industry, unlike other sectors of the business community, have been insulated from the pollution prevention orthodoxy sweeping the nation.

Hospitals Have Not Been Regulated
Part of the reason hospitals have not been leaders in pollution prevention initiatives is that they have operated in a virtually unregulated environment for many years. The typical small hospital incinerator has no pollution control equipment, and even some of the larger facilities do not have adequate controls. Consequently, medical waste incineration, and the medical waste stream in general, are a significant source of pollution to the environment.

The Ecology Center is approaching hospitals with three requests:

  • Stop purchasing products containing toxins like mercury and PVC plastic. Alternatives exist for most uses, and will lead to a considerably cleaner waste stream;
  • Reduce, reuse, recycle and separate on site to reduce the estimated 85% of the medical waste stream which is not infectious, but rather is just like the solid waste stream; and
  • Consider alternatives to incineration like autoclaving. There is a commercial autoclave in Toledo which accepts waste from hospitals. It is also cheaper to operate an autoclave onsite than to send waste to an offsite incinerator.

It is estimated that only 6% of the waste stream is infectious and needs to be disinfected. 2% of the hospital waste stream is pathological waste and should be burned in a crematorium or other incinerator. The rest of the waste, or more than 90%, can be handled in the same way we handle solid waste — by reducing, reusing, and recycling!

As part of the Ecology Center's efforts to clean up the health care industry, the Center was a founding member of Health Care Without Harm. Visit the Health Care Without Harm web page for more information on that coalition.