Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 24 Apr 2002

Vol. 552 No. 4

Written Answers. - Hospital Waste.

Jan O'Sullivan

Question:

45 Ms O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Health and Children when he expects to issue new guidelines to hospitals with regard to the disposal of hospital waste, having regard to the number of incidents where there has been illegal dumping of such material; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12558/02]

Minister for Health and Children (Mr. Martin)

In 1994, my Department issued a health services waste policy to all health boards and acute voluntary hospitals. The policy advocated good environmental and health and safety practices in the management, handling and disposal of all wastes generated in hospitals. Central to this policy were the segregation of health care waste into risk waste and non-risk waste and the initiation of a national contract to deal with the health care risk waste.

A national contract has been in operation for the past two years for the collection and treatment of health care risk waste by alternative technology. All acute hospitals now have their health care risk waste treated and disposed of in this manner. These arrangements are working satisfactorily.

The non-risk hospital waste, which is largely domestic in nature, is disposed of by the municipal or commercial waste disposal route. A detailed guidance document was issued in 1999 on the segregation, packaging and storage of health care risk waste. This latter document has been updated recently in the light of recent regulatory changes relating to the transportation and carriage of such materials, and is currently undergoing a consultation process with the relevant parties. It is anticipated that it will be issued to the health agencies within the next month.

In the wake of recent reports of alleged instances of illegal dumping of waste, some of which was stated to be hospital waste, my Department wrote to the health agencies drawing attention to the guidelines and stressing the importance of ensuring that reputable waste contractors are employed and that proof of disposal to licensed landfill site is obtained for each load of non-risk waste.