Infectious waste causes concern

Existing treating medical waste will hardly meet national regulation standards pertaining to the concentration of dioxins, risking the safety of residents living nearby, environmentalists said yesterday. The new standards will become effective in January next year.

Since SARS began to spread in Taiwan in March, environmentalists have urged the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to closely monitor the management of medical waste.

Last week, anti-incinerator protesters and legislators visited Sunny Friend Environmental Technology Co, a waste handler in Yunlin county in a contract with Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital.

At the end of April, worried residents protested against the company treating SARS-related waste collected from Taipei.

At the time, EPA Administrator Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) visited the waste handler in person, telling protesters that infectious waste collected from quarantined residential areas and hospitals would be carefully processed in order to ensure public health.

"Weeks later, we discovered that the incinerators where medical waste was treated were not operated properly," George Cheng (鄭益明), secretary-general of the Taiwan Watch Institution, told the Taipei Times yesterday.

Cheng that environmentalists were sampling soil and waste water near the waste handler for further analysis.

Cheng that environmentalists still believed it would not be possible that the concentration of dioxins of such incinerators could stand up to national regulation standards.

Coincidentally, environmentalists' concerns were confirmed last Wednesday when EPA head Hau visited other medical-waste incinerators in Kaohsiung.

Last week, Hau spent two days in the county to inspect the management of medical waste, including SARS waste collected from regional hospitals where the disease has been spreading.

The inspection was requested by lawmakers from the Legislative Yuan's Sanitation and Environment Committee.

Hau six lawmakers visited a waste handler located in Kaohsiung County's Tafa Industrial Complex (大發工業區), where a monthly average of 90 tonnes of medical waste collected from 82 hospitals and 2,182 clinics was treated.

As the SARS epidemic spread in the south, the waste handler treated additional waste produced by residents in isolation, on request of the Kaohsiung County Government. As of last Wednesday, the waste handler has treated 3,958kg of SARS-related waste.

According to company officials, the temperature for burning SARS-related waste was set at 1,100?C, which is higher than the 1,050?C standard set by the EPA.

Operators the company said they were processing the waste transferred from hospitals in two incinerators, under the supervision of local environment and health officials.

In addition, operators said, the required disinfection is also carried out daily.

However, KMT lawmaker Chen Li-hui (陳麗惠) discovered that the dioxin concentration of 88 ng-TEQ/Nm3, as tested in November last year, was much higher than the 0.5 ng-TEQ/Nm3 stipulated in the new regulations.

Hau the EPA had urged all medical-waste handlers to make an effort to improve the performance of incinerators since the announcement of related regulations two years ago.

"If they fail to meet all our demands, they will be forced to shut down or be fined severely," Hau said.

Meanwhile, KMT Legislator Hsu Chung-hsiung (徐中雄) pointed out that statistics pertaining to the amount of medical waste treated there were inconsistent.

Hsu the waste handler should have produced 284 tonnes of residue after burning 1,500 tonnes of industrial waste in the past two years. However, Hsu said, the waste handler reported that only 147 metric tonnes of residue was produced.

"Where has the other half of the toxic residue gone?" Hsu asked.

Hau that the management of residues collected from companies will be extraordinarily closely monitored in order to ensure the public's safety.