YOUR COMMUNITY
NEWSPAPER SINCE 1969

LIONS GATE Hospital
waste is raising a stink a1 the
North Shore garbage baling
station.

Workers for GSX Waste Tech-
nology Ltd., the company con-
tracted {0 operate the North
Shore's $4.2 million baling station,
began refusing to accept garbage
from the hospital in = mid-
December.

Greater Vancouver Kegional
District assistant engineer Len
Hayton said Thursday the 12 bal-
ing station workers feured infec-
tion from handling disgarded
hypodermic needles and other
hospital garbage during baling sta-
tion operations.

“They don’t like what
(garbage) comes out of
a hospital and I don’t
blame them, but there
is no danger of
infection.”’

—LGH president

John Borthwick

Though LGH, like all B.C. hos-
pitals, incinerates any infectious
garbage it produces, Hayton said
there were still some‘‘objectionable
things’’ that were being delivered
to the baling station from the hos-
pital.

Because the station's 5 X 3-ft
baler occasionally becomes jamm-
ed while processing an average
8,750-tonnes of garbage per
month, workers must physically
come in contact. with that garbage
when removing pipes, boards, trees
and other items that block the
baler.

“When it (hospital garbage) was
being taken directly to the landfill
there was no problem, but wher it
has to be handled there is an
understandable concern (from the
workers),’’ Hayton said.

LGH president John Borthwick
said the refusal of workers to han-
dle the hospital’s garbage had
forced re-routing of that garbage
to the Coquitlam transfer station

al a projected extra annual cost of

$5,000.

But, as of Jan. 9. the Coquitlam
station stopped accepting LGH
garbage.

“They don’t like what (garbage)
comes out of a hospital and 1 don't
blame them, but there is no danger
of infection,’ Borthwick said.
“We've talked to everybody about
this to see if we can come up with
a solution and | think we will.
We've got to.”

LGH followed Californian in-
fection control standards, Bor-
thwick said, which are reputed to
be the strictest in North America.

Lab refuse and anything poten-
tially infectious is first sterilized,
then incinerated, he said.

Hayton estimated that) LGH
produced about nine tonnes of
garbage per week, or .4 per cent of
all garbage processed by the North
Shore baling station.

He said the Coquitlam station
had been accepting LGH waste
because it is a different operation
and does not require the occasional
close worker contact with garbage
that the North Shore station does.

Solution to the hospital garbage
problem, Hayton said, would re-
quire more selective sorting of
hospital garbage coupled with
more incineration of such offen-
sive looking items as hypodermic
needles and bloodied plastic tub-
ing.

“We are coming up with better
internal procedures to control the
type of garbage (from the hospital)
and protect the workers,"’ he said.
“And we should have things solv-
ed by next week.’”’

Hayton pointed out that,
because crews handled all garbage
processed at the station, the opera-
tion has resulted in an increased
awareness of North Shore garbage
and an improvement in the stan-
dard of garbage sent to the
Premier Street landfill.

The higher standard also means
alternative solutions must be found
for the disposal of waste that can-
not be processed through the bal-
ing station.

Officially opened June 12, the
North Vancouver baling station
was the first of its kind in B.C.

About 2,000 tonnes of garbage
per week is currently compressed,
baled and trucked to the Premier
Street ‘landfill from the station.
Traffic to the North Vancouver
District dump has consequently
been reduced from 500 to 15 vehi-
cles per day.

Modelling
dreams
launched
PAGE 39

Spring
into
fashion
PAGE 15

NEWS photo Stuart Davis

GREATER VANCOUVER Regional District workers poured about 200 23-litre drums of a concentrated
sodium hypochlorite solution down the recently repaired Capilano reservoir water main Friday. The
solution was mixed with water to about one hundred times the concentration found in tap water, and will
sit in the main for five days to sterilize the pipe. Located under the north end of the Lions Gate Bridge,
the main blew Dec. 11, leaving areas of the North Shore and downtown Vancouver without water. The
main is expected to be back in full operation oy the end of January.