In the early hours of Thursday morning, State and local Henrico County Police were called to a scene on Interstate 64 eastbound near the 195 mile marker in Henrico County. Virginia.
They found two boxes of regulated clinical (medical) waste along the left side of the roadway. The two boxes fell out of a 2012 Chevrolet Box Truck after the driver failed to properly secure the rear doors.
According to the driver, these were the only two boxes that fell out of the truck. The driver did retrieve the two boxes.
The driver has been charged with failure to properly secure the vehicles load.
It’s a long time since I have witnessed clinical wastes falling from a vehicle but there have been incidents. Most common have been fluids seeing from wastes trickling from beneath and behind the tail lift of a large truck stacked to the roof with loose waste sacks, the lower layers of which must have been under such compression that seepage should have been predicted, and prevented.
Less often but perhaps more serious was the lackadaisical approach of Local Authority staff collecting clinical and sanitary/offensive wastes from householders. Throwing these waste sacks from the pavement, across parked cars and into the rear of a box van parted several yards away with its tail lift up but roller door wide open to create a tempting and perhaps easy target. But not always was the target reached, and some waste sacks hit the hard edges of the vehicle and fell to the road. One other sack missed the truck entirely and hit a car parked on the other side of the road.
The waste sector is required to operate purpose-designed trucks to carry clinical wastes. The fittings and construction of the waste compartment is well-described and need not be rehearsed here. Most operators comply. However, Local Authorities perform generally less well but seem to avoid the attentions of HSE and EA inspection. Vehicles used for domiciliary clinical waste collections may be drawn from a fleet of general waste and environmental services department vehicles but rarely if ever meet the standards described in HTM 07:01.
Open cage backs are not uncommon and it was from one of these, piled high with bright yellow clinical waste sacks projecting far above the sides of the cage that I was able to see tow waste sacks falling as the vehicle rounded Hammersmith Broadway in West London at some speed. To make matters worse, the driver slowed and some 100 yards further on, in the centre of the carriage way to the annoyance of other drivers, leant out of the cab door and looked back, then drove off.
Sometimes, it just can’t get worse can it?
see also Spillage of clinical wastes from vehicles