Hospitals Unprepared for Hazardous Ebola Waste

U.S. hospitals could have trouble handling and disposing of Ebola-related waste if they begin to treat infected patients, potentially threatening public safety.

The hemorrhagic fever is transmitted through bodily fluids and produces significant vomiting and diarrhea in people it infects.

These fluids would be considered biohazards and require special handling and disposal that few hospitals are prepared to carry out.

As health officials entertain the possibility that more Ebola cases could arrive in the United States, it’s a logistical problem hospitals are starting to consider.

The challenge was highlighted Wednesday in a report by Reuters, which chronicled how doctors at Emory University in Atlanta handled Ebola waste in the course of treating two infected missionaries.

Patients were generating “up to 40 bags a day of medical waste,” according to Emory assistant professor of medicine Aneesh Mehta. And the hospital’s disposal company, Stericycle, reportedly refused to handle the material at first.

So clinicians found a temporary solution: 32-gallon rubber containers with lids from Home Depot. Later, they used a special sterilizer to neutralize the waste before passing it to the company for disposal.

Reuters noted that few hospitals have the ability to sterilize materials on site like Emory.

“For this reason, it would be very difficult for a hospital to agree to care for Ebola cases. This desperately needs a fix,” Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s Public Health Committee, told the wire service.

Federal health and transportation agencies are reportedly meeting to discuss and resolve the issue.

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EPA Fines Sims Metal $189K for Polluting SF Bay

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice announced the $189,000 fine against Sims Metal Management on Thursday September 18th over allegations that it polluted the San Francisco Bay with toxic metal debris. The EPA charged the company with allowing toxic dust from metal to fall off a conveyor system and into a creek that feeds into the San Francisco Bay since at least the early 1990’s. As part of a settlement agreement, the recycling company will be required to pay the cost of cleanup in addition to the fine.

Sims Metal spokeswoman Jill Rodby said the company has implemented a number of best practices around the conveyor and agreed to the settlement without acknowledging any wrongdoing.

Source: NBC Bay Area

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Greatly Increased Metal Recycling!

“Covanta has increased ferrous metal recycling from waste to bottom ash by upgrading its magnetic sorting systems” their waste energy facilities’ new method could potentially recover 7.5 million tons of metal each year.

Bottom ash is what results from burning mixed solid waste (Covanta burns this to generate energy), combustion and air pollution control take place and then, bottom ash is produced. The amount of metals in the ash is significant and magnets are then used to capture the metals from the ash which will then be recycled.

By updating their equipment they found that they were able to capture more ferrous and nonferrous metals from waste. The rare earth magnetic scrap drum is one such piece of equipment, as it has the power to attract more metals across its surface compared to other magnets.

Some weeks ago we posted some amazing articles about capturing precious resources and using magnets.

This article talks about a satellite equipped with a giant magnet in space that collects orbiting debris: https://wastetracking.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/japan-prepares-to-launch-giant-net-into-orbit-to-sweep-up-space-debris/

And these robots are designed to separate more debris from mixed construction and demolition debris: https://wastetracking.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/for-those-in-robotics-construction-and-waste-prepare-to-be-amazed-by-zenrobtics/

It turns out that magnets do a lot more than just deliver music to our ears.

Source: http://www.waste-management-world.com/articles/2014/08/case-study-increased-metal-recycling-from-waste-to-energy-ash-with-rare-earth-magnet.html

 

 

Don’t Recycle That Pizza Box Until You Read This

Oil/grease is one of the worst contaminates in the paper recycling process because paper recycling undergoes a heat process, gets mixed with water and pulverized to paper pulp to make recycled paper. If there is oil in the paper pulp mixture then the paper ends up having spots and holes.

About three years ago we wrote about the fact that many corrugated cardboard pizza boxes are recyclable if and only if they are clean. You can read about the pizza box recycling debate here.

We hope that by spreading the word about this and providing you with some visuals about the seriousness of ruining entire batches of recycling because you didn’t know that oil soaked cardboard shouldn’t be recycled in any amount, we can make people aware of this simple point: it might be better to throw that oily box away.

If you still want to recycle that pizza then there are great ways to go about this:

1. If the top half of the pizza box has no grease on it then feel free to rip that half away from the bottom and recycle the top half!
2. Share this article with others who could learn a thing or two about how recycled paper is made, trust us, they won’t forget the next time they have an oily pizza box!

The Biggest Factor in How Much We Recycle Is…

The number 1 factor that effects whether or not someone will or will not recycle is their knowledge about what can be recycled. Yolonda Wright conducted 200 surveys to see what factors play a key role in determining the likely hood that one will recycle.

Yolonda wrote about UC Berkeley’s first Recycling Summit, 2001 that promoted campus recycling by increasing access to recycling and refuse containers, the campus bought recycled paper and even established a materials exchange.

In addition to one’s knowledge (a distinction was made between general knowledge and “knowledge about what can be recycled), demographics, knowledge of recycling bin location, age, area of study and more factors were considered.

Our blog has a lot of ideas for those who are already motivated to recycle. We also talked about people in correctional facilities that recycle quite a bit thanks to the training that they receive during their positions. For more about sustainable jobs, please click here and Yolonda’s study can be found here.

Do you find this easy or hard to believe? Let us know what you think on Twitter http://twitter.com/wastetracking

Shocked that some cities still need to consider construction recycling

Just read in the news that Burlington, Vt. is currently considering recycling their construction waste…

The good news is that the city is starting the process of making recycling construction waste a requirement for building permits.

Although this was shocking news for us, it does make since that because construction is on the rise in the Berlington, Vt., this is just now being addressed.

Best wishes to the city and their diversion efforts!

 

Source: http://www.mychamplainvalley.com/story/d/story/burlington-considers-construction-recycling/13736/AJ_hUwH6BkmMlficA-2YRw

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#Smart Table Has a Full Cycle #Design

This short (under 4 minute) film illustrates a full cycle, mixed use table that lets people cultivate, garden, cook, eat, wash dishes and repeat.

If you don’t have the time to watch the whole cycle unfold, then here’s the CliffsNotes, Wiki, or actually StudioGorm version of it:

 

Source: http://www.studiogorm.com/flow2.html

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“Japanese Demolition” Non-Disruptive and Incredibly #Eco-Friendly

This is a common way to demolish tall buildings

This is the before and after image of Taisei Corporation’s Ecologoligal Reproduction System (Tecorep)

A Japanese company has a revolutionary approach to demolishing tall buildings that reuses as much as possible, doesn’t disrupt the surroundings (in contract to the common demolishing method which involves blowing the building up), and is much more eco-friendly; this reduces the carbon footprint by 85%!

Taisei Corporation is the genius behind this method and it developed the Ecologoligal Reproduction System (Tecorep) that demolished the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka in a quiet and eco-friendly way that was previously unheard of. Time lapse videos of this process shows: the hotel shrinking as a crane inside of the hotel places interior debris outside of the building meanwhile a temporary floor gets built so that the crane that recycles energy from lowering the debris can get lowered and the process can be repeated until the hotel is significantly lowered.

This video shows someone from Taisei Corporation standing in front of the hotel, there is footage inside of the demolition and footage from the quiet outside so that you can see the building shrink. This is definitely a must see if you haven’t yet. Please tell us what you think @wastetracking on Twitter.

#quoteoftheday

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

-Confucius

#Troubleshooting worm bins for composting

Earlier this week, we posted about a how you can vermicompost and create, rich, anti-fungal earth for your gardening! Well, the info graphic that we posted is Sustainable America’s most popular infographic this year, so they made a trouble shooting worm bin guide and sent is to us!

For those of you who struggle to keep your worms happy or have questions about gardening with this compost or worm casings, please see this article.

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