Ten people have been detained by police for alleged illegal trading, transporting and storing of medical waste in Puning City in south China’s Guangdong Province.

Yan Qiusheng and Lin Donghao, vice presidents of the Puning People’s Hospital, have been given Communist Party of China and administrative disciplinary sanctions, it was revealed at a press conference organized by the Puning municipal government.

Four medical waste recycling stations were closed and a truck transporting the waste was seized on Tuesday, the deputy mayor added. The case was disclosed on Sunday by online posts claiming that over 10 tonnes of medical waste have been found by villagers in a forest in the village of Nanyang, Puning City.

Initial investigation showed that medical waste produced by the Puning People’s Hospital was divided to two kinds according to the raw materials — glass and plastic products.

Some glass bottles were sold to glass plants as cullet while others were recycled after simple cleaning and sterilizing. Plastic syringes and infusion bottles were also collected and recycled by plastic processing plants.

Further investigation is under way.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/8263748.html

The penalties for breaches of clinical waste management regulations can be severe but at least in the UK regulators rarely stray from their desks and even where there are problems – albeit rare in this country – penalties are modest. Not so in China, and it is far to say that those who have been subject to ‘Communist Party of China and administrative disciplinary sanctions’ are in deep trouble.