ENVIRONMENT Minister Stephen Dawson has given the green light for WA’s only medical waste incinerator at Welshpool to double up as a storage facility for other hazardous waste.

Mr Dawson rejected an appeal from the National Toxics Network, which argued big volumes of liquid industrial wastes might end up being put through the incinerator, thereby increasing noxious emissions.

Waste company Suez burns infectious clinical waste from hospitals and other medical facilities at the Carney Road incinerator. Pharmaceutical waste and cytotoxic waste is also incinerated there. The company also uses a matrix treatment system to sterilise other medical waste before it is disposed of in landfill.

Suez has now been given permission to operate a solid and liquid waste depot at the site. The company yesterday said none of the new waste would be put through the incinerator.

“The new packaged waste facility is completely separate to the medical waste processing facility,” (WA) infrastructure manager Craig Barker said.

“At this new facility, solid and liquid waste is not disposed of on-site, instead it is aggregated and then transferred to another licensed disposal facility.”