Bit of a panic, mainly in the press at present, about an interesting paper in Environmental Health Perspectives entitled “Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Detected at Four U.S. Wastewater Treatment Plants”.

As everyone knows, this particular genie got out of the bag several years ago and if now commonplace in hospitals and other healthcare institutions including care homes etc, and circulates freely in the community.

Waste handlers must be exposed, since it is part of the flora of those wastes to which they are regularly exposed. Indeed, Staph aureus, though not particularly the methicillin resistant variant, has been found on the external surfaces of bulk waste carts and of individual waste sacks and their sack holders.

We should welcome this new observation. It is not an indicator of some new hazard, a health and safety risk that requires intervention, and certainly doesn’t need a regulatory kneejerk. Instead, it is proof perhaps that those who come into contact with MRSA and have it on their hands are washing it off properly. It’s fate in wastewater is of no concern to us.