Four illegal medical waste dump sites in Welkom in the Free State were finally declared clean after a R53 million (£3 million) clean-up operation which removed 18,600 tons of contaminated soil and medical waste.

The criminal case against nine people and entities investigated for illegally dumping the waste, discovered in November 2009, would continue on November 29.

They included the former chief executive officer of waste company Wasteman, Olivier Meyer, and Welkom businessman and Maximus Bricks owner Gavin Brasher.

Brasher was a sub-contractor for Wasteman.

Craigie said the prosecuting team was looking at bringing charges against another eight people

Speaking to journalists at the Maximus Bricks site, independent hydro-geologist Ritchie Morris (SUBS: NAME CORRECT) said some 12,000 tons of clay ground mixed with waste was removed at the site.

The waste was buried in trenches which varied from 1.5 to 5.5 metres deep and about 1.5 metres apart which covered the yard.

Limited stockpiling of the contaminated soil occurred and most was directly loaded on trucks which took the material to legal dumps sites at Holfontein, near Springs, and Vissershoek in the Western Cape.

http://www.publiceyenews.com/2010/11/04/fs-illegal-medical-waste-sites-clean/

It is a huge task to clear up these sites, and sadly many of them still exist. Some have not been used for years but at some time in the past had received, illegally, clinical wastes and other hazardous wastes that were neither permitted or properly recorded.

Experience in Ireland is of many such sites. My own reserach of some of those sites has shown dramatic loss of viability of deposited pathogens, over weeks of months, and complete extinction after 6 months. Though this is supported by substantial published evidence sadly the diversity of micro-environments such as fluids trapped within an intact plastic or glass container make it hard to be sure. Microbiological testing is of no real value and so a wide margin of safety is required.

As in Ireland, residents don’t like the idea of deposited clinical wastes and anticipate land contaminated with nasty bugs for years to come. Unlikely, if not impossible, but it takes a lot of time and effort to change those views.