It is not uncommon for residents and businesses, and others, to oppose planning applications for clinical waste facilities. A lack of understanding, perhaps combined with an inherent fear of blood and needles will generally have the naysayers out in force.

On occasions, this has developed to unpleasant stories in the local newspapers, to more personal and direct attacks on applicants and their advisers. However, with an honest and accurate explanation of the realities, of the process of healthcare and the circumstances of generation of wastes, of the conditions for safe handling and storage, and of the controls applied during the process of subsequent treatment most objections can be reversed in a dialogue that ensures that everyone understands the risks associated simply with proximity to a waste treatment site. There are none.

But in Texas, things are bigger and better. Well, that’s what they tell us, and as if to prove a point “a small group gathered outside two Beaumont hospitals today to bring awareness to what it says is a growing problem. The disposal of infectious medical waste.

“Hospitals generate millions of tons of waste each year.

“In the past, the waste was burned on-site to dispose of it, but that let off dangerous toxins. Now it’s common practice for hospitals to use off-site haulers to dispose of waste. Protesters say advances in technology now give hospitals more options for safe on-site disposal.

http://setxhomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=206442

We know that local reporting of such incidents is often wide of the mark, but assuming that this is accurate, if it just transport issues that is the cause of concern?  There is, of course, a perverse logic to the argument. We don’t want this nasty waste shipped to a licensed treatment facility, but instead want it processed on site, where all of our poorly friends and relatives are lying in bed, swathed in bandages and fighting off those horrible hospital-acquired infections. If that were the case, and if this processing was the issue – it’s not – then ship the stuff off-site without further delay, and stop moaning!