Re: medical wastes - alternatives to incineration - info needed

[cgt3102@tam2000.tamu.edu (Carlos G Tornquist)]

>I am preparing a report on problems of medical wastes incineration
>and the already existent alternatives to deal with them in an
>environmentally sound manner.
>Could you send me information on alternatives in your country:
>cities that decided not to incinerate, hospitals that chose
>alternatives technologies, information on the technologies
>themselves and addresses of the companies for other communities to
>get in touch with them?
>
>
>Veronica Odriozola
>e-mail: gp@wamani.apc.org

Dear Veronica

I was involved with the medical waste problem back home (Porto Alegre,
Brazil) a few years ago - and did some pretty thorough lit search on the
subject back then. At the time, the municipality of Porto Alegre (pop. 1.2
mi) had bought a "pyrolytic" incinerator to dispose of medical wastes. The
env. organization I worked with found out that the machines had a terrible
track record in other places in Brazil, so a major campaign was initiated to
block the installation of those poorly-designed "toxics generators", as we
called them. As of now, the city government has changed its policy and is
trying to return the equipment to the makers. Hospital and clinic waste is
being disposed in a specific section of the sanitary landfill. I must
emphasize that there has been great effort in REDUCING waste generation
WITHIN the hospital/clinic scene, largely through educational initiatives
from the state environmental agency and some local NG0s. This seems to be a
very sensible and cost-effective approach, since most of the waste coming
from these places has NO contact whatsoever with infected material,
therefore can be recycled without major containment or extra precaution.
Infected stuff could possibly be autoclaved and then recycled or disposed of
in regular landfills as usual. I know for a fact that a lot of "traditional"
epidemiologists would disagree with the latter, but as far as my research
was able to go, NO epidemic has EVER been traced back to hospital wastes. In
Brazil, Dr. Uriel Zanon (an epidemiologist at UFF - Univ. Federal
Fluminense, Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro) has conducted (and published) some
research in this area. You can check with GreenPeace-Rio (or GP-Sao Paulo,
where your  Toxics Campaign officer is/was based) to locate this fellow...

Suerte


Carlos G. Tornquist
Soil & Crop Sciences -
Texas A&M University