State laws guide local health departments on how to regulate hazardous and medical waste within each town. Medical waste consists of materials like old prescription medication, sharps (e.g. needles and lancets), and medical devices (e.g. IV bags). Health departments have previously enacted drop off sites for sharps, supplied public health nurses to aid in waste collection, or instilled mechanical kiosks to aid in the collection of medical waste. In many of these instances, untrained and unknowledgeable public health employees are handling medical waste. Other forms of hazardous waste, such as mercury containing devices (barometers, thermometers, bulbs and other instruments), are collected at satellite locations, and also handled by untrained personnel. The focus of this project was to create a manual that would educate and provide models of programs in which medical and other hazardous wastes are safely collected and disposed of for the town of Lexington, MA. For mercury waste, a fact sheet was created to outline a “no brainer” approach for handling and disposing of mercury contaminated waste.
The documents were intended to help inform individuals on how to handle and dispose of waste, and learn about what constitutes as hazardous and medical waste. For other household hazardous waste, such as oil-based paints, house cleaners, batteries, pesticides and oil, previously instilled collection days were continued; on these collection days, a contracted vendor comes to town and properly collects and disposes of these waste streams. The newly generated manuals and fact sheets were shown to residents on these collection days, and feedback was used to make the documents more user-friendly. The medical waste disposal manual, fact sheet for disposing of items containing mercury, and the poster presenting this work were all supported by the Massachusetts Environmental Health Association.
No comments:
Post a Comment