The State of Massachusetts has fined a hospital over its clinical / medical waste disposal.

Imposing a fine of USD 6,000 on Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, the Department of Environmental Protection acted on concerns over failing to comply with state regulations regarding the proper disposal of hazardous waste.

The UK equivalent seems hardly, if ever, to see the light of regulatory days. Instead, failures  are addressed by penalising the politically easier and obviously practical target of the waste disposal contractor. Penalties, either direct or expressed as a general lack of cooperation that can impose on contractors a need to jump through a variety of hoops, not all of which legal, in order to maintain the status quo and avoid jeopardising future permitting renewals.

That cannot be right. It characterises the fine line taken by EA in their approach to regulation, at least of clinical waste operations. A dictatorial, sometimes possibly illegal, approach to bullying and veiled threats is simply not acceptable, but continues to operate as if imposed from some individual fiefdom.

As EA staff move on, things have the change of getting better. However, the focus of regulatory attention on waste contractors who then take the hit for the failures of their customers increases prices for everyone. However, it would be politically unacceptable to impose heavy fines and other restrictions on NHS hospitals. Is that the reason EA act as they do? If it, like FFI and the HSE, simply the approach to regulation focussed more on targeted money-raising than it is on improving waste management?