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While GVRD staff had recom-
mended that properly sterilized or
*‘autoclaved"’ hospital biomedical
waste be accepted at landfills, the
board voted March 27 to follow a
contrary recommendation from
the GVRD solid waste manage-
ment committee.

According to the cormnmittee’s
recommendation ‘‘the risks and
consequences of burying in a
landfill biomedical wastes that
have not been fully sterilized are
too serious to recommend
autoclaving as an acceptable
treatment technology.”’

Biomedical or potentially infec-
tious waste includes sharps (syr-
inges and scalpels}), serums, vac-
cines, blood and blood products,
animal carcasses and body parts,
and material from infectious pa-
tients.

But a representative of the
company that currently packages
and hauls Lower Mainland
biomedical} waste says there is no
scientific or health-related reason
why hospital waste processed in its
new $2.5 million Port Coquitlam
autoclave should be excluded from
landfills.

Wade Musseau, spokesman for
BFI Medical Waste Systems Inc.,
said the GVRD decision was polit-
jcal and based on misinformation.

He said the financial ramifica-
tions of the decision for local
hospitals could be ‘‘enormous."*

But North Vancouver District
Ald. Ernie Crist, who sits on the
GVRD solid waste management
committee, said the committee is
convinced that biomedical and
other potentially infectious waste
should be incinerated.

The GVRD's decision against
autoclaving, he said, was based
not so much on any scientific
reasons, but more on matters of
**sensitivity’’ that arise over sen-
ding medical waste to landfills.

Crist added that, because it in-
creases the number of times bos-
pital waste has to be handled 2nd
sorted, autoclaving is also poten-
tially more expensive than in-
cineration.

Approximately 85% of hospital
biomedical waste can be autoclav-
ed. but the remaining 15% (in-
cluding sharps, anatomical and
chemotherapy waste) requires in-
cineration.

Crist said that, ideully, ail
biomedical waste should be in-
cinerated on-site at hospital,.

But B.C. currently has no facil-

‘Truck runs amok

A TRUCK and chipper unit belonging to North Vancouver-based Alpine Tree Services Ltd. ties
on its side in a creek at Nelson Avenue and 25th Streei in West Vancouver Thursday morning
following a bizarre accident. The truck was parked in a private driveway when it suddenly
began rolling down 25th Street with no one inside the vehicle and with the chipper unit still
running. No one was injured in the incident. See stery page 3.

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GVRD biomedical waste decision
could triple LGH disposal costs

A RECENT motion passed by the Greater Vancouver
Regional District (GVRD) board of directors opposing the
dumping of sterilized biomedical waste in Lower Mainland
fandfills could triple biomedical waste disposal costs for
Lions Gate Hospital and other area health-care facilities.

By Timothy Renshaw
Managing Editor

ity for the incineration of
biomedical waste. And_ Lions
Gate Hospital stopped burning its
potentially infectious waste in
1988 because LGH incinerators
could not be upgraded to reach
the temperatures needed to burn
increasingly complex hospital gar-
bage without exceeding air pollu-
tion standards.

Crist. said the current philoso-
phy is to reduce the amount: of
garbage being sent to landfills.
But Musseau said that biomedical
waste accounts for only .005% of
B.C.’s total solid waste stream.

Vancouver Ald. George Puil,
who also sits on the solid waste
committee, added that the testing
for material coming out of an
autoclave system “tends to get
sloppy over the years.”*

BFI currently ships biomedical
waste from area hospitals and
other health-care facilities to an
incinerator in Washington State.

But access to that facility is
becoming increasingly tenuous:
resident concern over pollution
from the facility prompted
passige in August 1989 of a
Washington State ordinance bann-
ing the importation of biomedical
waste.

BFI is currently challenging the
constitutionality of the ordinance
in U.S. courts. But Musseau said
BF! has also promised
Washington State authorities that
the company will stop trucking the
85% of hospital waste that can be
processed in BFI’s Port Coquitlam
autoclave to the Washington State
incinerator once the autoclave has
been given all the necessary feder-
al, provincial and regional per-
mits.

And Musseau said those permits
have been granted.

If B.C. biomedical waste is net
trucked to local landfills, Musseau
said the next closest medical wasie
incinerator available to BFE is
1.400 miles away in Kansas.
Dumping it in landfills would
reduce biomedical waste disposal
costs for local hospitals by 20%,
according to Musseau.

But the extra trucking costs of
taking the waste to Kansas, he
said, would almost triple disposal

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