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Councilors on the prowl for hospital waste

Despite Taipei City's recent ban on incinerating medical waste at a Peitou incinerator, city councilors and borough wardens of the Peitou and Shihlin districts yesterday alleged that private waste handlers transport medical waste to the site to be burned.

New Party City councilors James Wei (魏憶龍) and Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) and KMT City Councilor Lai Su-ju (賴素如) held a press conference yesterday morning to air their allegations.

Showing a video tape filmed between 10pm Tuesday night and 2am yesterday morning, Wei said that together with 65 borough wardens of the Peitou and Shihlin districts and 35 local residents, they found two black plastic bags of medical waste after checking about 1,000 garage bags at the site.

"We found one of them to contain empty plastic bags from intravenous drips, with the name Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (長庚醫院) printed on them. The other appeared to come from a dental clinic, containing contaminated cotton balls," Wei said.

According to Stephen Shen (沈世宏), director of the city's Bureau of Environmental Protection (環保局), about 200 garbage trucks entered the Peitou incinerator last night, transporting about 700 tonnes, or 30,000 bags of refuse.

To prevent similar occurrences in the future, Shen said the bureau will soon set up stations on the site to conduct random checks of garbage bags.

Shen also called on hospitals and clinics to disinfect infectious medical waste before they dispose of the refuse to contracted private waste cleaning companies.

Chang Chien-sheng (張建盛), chairman of the Taipei Waste Management Commercial Association (台北市廢棄物清理同業公會), how-ever, said the problem does not lie in private waste cleaning companies but in hospitals and clinics.

"Our 80 plus members ferry only regular waste for hospitals and clinics. It's impossible for us to transport medical waste for them because it costs twice as much as it does for regular refuse," he said.

Lai proposed imposing severe fines on hospitals and private waste cleaning companies who dump unprocessed infectious medical waste at the Peitou incinerator.

"The city needs to let them know that they have to pay a high price for carelessly taking care of the matter," she said.

Chen Chao-chin (陳朝琴), Feng-nien borough warden in the Peitou District, said that the city's other two incinerators in Neihu and Wenshan districts should also share the responsibility for incinerating the city's medical waste.

"Dioxin-polluted air is not a problem of the Peitou District alone but that of the entire city," he said.

Chen's view was echoed by a Peitou resident, who refused to be identified. "We're all in the same boat. I'm afraid that if we don't tackle the problem now, it will get out of hand five or 10 years down the road," he said.

The resident also suggested the establishment of a 50-tonne medical waste incinerator on each of the Environmental Protection Administration's (EPA) planned industrial waste processing sites in northern, central and southern Taiwan.

Taipei produces an average of 75 tonnes of medical waste a day, about 15 percent of which is infectious refuse. Until recently, 60 percent of the infectious waste went to a contracted steel plant in Taoyuan County for incineration, while the remaining 40 percent was sent to a private medical waste incinerator in Yunlin County.

But in March, the EPA abruptly ordered the Taoyuan plant to shut down its incineration operations, citing its high level of dioxin emissions.

Since then Taipei hospitals have themselves had to store their infectious medical waste. As of yesterday, the amount had reached about 400 tonnes.

As a temporary measure, the city agreed to start burning disinfected infectious medical waste as regular garbage at the Peitou incinerator.
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