Much is said about source segregation of waste from clinical areas. A sometimes apoplectic response can be expected when inappropriate general waste items are found in an orange or yellow clinical waste container. Penalties are threatened and sometimes imposed by regulators who might sidestep direct action against producers in favour of a cheap swipe at waste management service providers who have little control over initial disposal processes and procedures.
For several years, various waste managers and healthcare professionals have busied themselves with schemes to improve source segregation and minimise clinical waste volumes. Though the desire is entirely worthy, most will report the results of a short 1 or 2 week exercise and magnify the results of their interventions to project, hopefully, a full year outcome. Naive and shortsighted, this type of work has been addressed many times previously in the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum and various reports appear in our archives. Never has any study of waste segregation interventions measured the successes at 1 and 2 weeks with the outcome at 1 year.
Yet more importantly, never do these ‘experts’ look at the content of more general waste streams to assess the success of their diversionary tactics. If inappropriately inflated clinical waste volumes decline, is this associated with an increase in the incorrect disposal of potentially hazardous waste items in general refuse sacks? The results might just spoil the party, and perhaps unsurprisingly nobody ever bothers to look!
What happens to the more general refuse items from hospitals and healthcare establishments should be cause for considerable concern. Segregation and resource recovery is rare, not least since many clinical areas and most offices have little additional space to accommodate the additional waste containers for paper, plastic, glass and metal etc. In addition, few hospitals can afford the manpower to deal with additional waste streams.
A new and quite innovative co-mingling scheme operating in Suffolk by recycling company Sackers is helping Ipswich Hospital to reduce its costs and help the environment. Using clear sacks for general waste, this finds its way in a single step to a picking line where recyclable waste fractions are recovered.
This is an excellent idea that should be widely applauded since it brings to non-hazardous healthcare waste an opportunity for resource recovery that is presently lacking. It will be interesting to know of the long-term success of this project and I hope that those involved will study closely and report their results.
Of course, a few carelessly discarded needles will bring the picking line to a standstill and scupper the entire project.