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By Sheryl Anne G. Quito, Senior Reporter
First of three parts
In 1995, the Department of Health, through a
P504-million loan extended by Bank Austria, acquired 26 incinerators to help improve the management of medical
wastes in hospitals that the department controls in the country.
The medical waste incinerators touted as
products of latest technology were considered the safest and
comparatively cheaper solutions to hospital sanitation the Austrian
government vouched for. Eight years later, in 2003, all 26
incinerators were made obsolete because of the health and
environmental hazards posed by the burning equipment, as mandated by
the incineration ban of the Clean Air Act of 1999.
With the ban on incinerators, the government had
no choice but to dispose of infectious hospital wastes together with
regular trash in dumps and landfills. The mountains of garbage
generated in the country everyday may have become a natural sight.
People might have accepted that the situation, being an almost
normal fixture, is as natural as the other tourist attractions that
the government promotes. Like the use of incinerators, dumping
hospital waste in waste disposal sites also poses hazardous effects
on human health and the environment.
Hospital wastes are a form of solid wastes that
pose grave threats not only to human health but also to the now
fragile environment. Not many, however, know how these are disposed
of. Records of the National Academy of Science and Technology show
that the country’s hospitals generate about 6,750 tons of medical
wastes a year (47 tons a day). Of this total, it is estimated that
about 27 tons or 56 percent are considered infectious and/or
potentially infectious. Hospital or medical wastes, as they are
collectively called, includes wastes generated by hospitals, clinics
and health-care establishments like: sharp objects (syringes,
needles); pathological wastes (human and/or animal tissues, organs,
fetuses); and materials that have been in contact with patients with
infectious diseases (tubings and filters, laboratory coats). The
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), through its
Environment Management Bureau (EMB), categorizes hospital wastes as
hazardous wastes requiring proper treatment and disposal to ensure
the protection of public health and the environment.
If high technology incinerators and conventional
waste disposal practices are no match to proper hospital waste
management, what then should the government do to address this
growing concern?
Zero pollution?
Incineration is a waste treatment technology
that involves the combustion of organic materials and/or substances.
Using incinerators, medical wastes are converted into ash, flue
gases, particulates and heat, which can in turn be used to generate
electricity. But no matter how technologically advanced incinerators
are, local and international environmental groups are ceaselessly
pushing an anti-incinerator campaign because of the threats of the
devices to public health and the environment.
Incineration used to be the treatment method of
choice for medical wastes for two specific reasons. First,
incineration has always been thought to be the best method of
eliminating any infectious organisms that are present in medical
wastes. Second, incineration has been economical for hospitals
because it substantially reduces the volume to be disposed of in a
landfill. The world, however, has also learned that incineration is
a leading source of highly toxic dioxin, mercury, lead and other
dangerous air pollutants that threaten human health and the
environment. So, where do we go from here?
As a waste-disposal technology, incineration has
been around for about 500,000 years—an interesting spin-off of
man’s discovery of fire. For years, incineration appeared to be
the best way to turn hazardous wastes into air emissions, smaller
piles of ash and sometimes energy. The Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) calls high-temperature incineration the best available
technology for disposing of most hazardous wastes. Refuse is also
burned in incinerators. Incineration is more expensive but a safer
method of disposal than landfills. Modern incinerators are designed
to destroy at least 99.9 percent of the organic wastes materials
they handle. Numerous thermal processes recover energy from solid
wastes. But incineration has drawbacks. When hazardous wastes go
into an incinerator, they come out as potentially harmful air
emissions; they don’t just vanish into thin air.
Stan Cannon, spokesman for the Washington,
D.C.-based Environmental Technology Council, formerly the Hazardous
Waste Treatment Council, however, says, “Hazardous waste
incineration can be very safe. We’re probably the most regulated
industry in the world, and the industry is very willing to work with
EPA to hammer out the best, toughest standards the equipment can
achieve.”
“If an incinerator is designed well and run
efficiently, it should be no problem,” says William Suk, chief of
the Chemical Exposures and Molecular Biology Branch at the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). “The problem
is they’re not designed that well, not run that efficiently, and
they present a problem.” In fact, Suk shares that the concerns
over the health effects of dioxin and furan emissions have been
significantly lessened by advances in emission control designs and
very stringent new governmental regulations that have resulted in
large reductions in the amount of dioxins and furan emissions.
In the same way, studies conducted by the NIEHS
showed that incineration of medical waste and sewage sludge
produces an end product ash that is sterile and nonhazardous. The
bottom ash residue remaining after combustion has been shown to be a
nonhazardous solid waste that can be safely disposed of in a
landfill or possibly reused.
To be continued
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