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PR EPA SETS FINAL RULE TO SIGNIFICANTLY CUT HARMFUL AIR POLLUTION FROM MEDICAL WASTE INCINERATORS

Release Date: 08/15/97
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EPA today issued the first federal rules to protect public health by significantly reducing the harmful air pollution that comes from medical waste incinerators. Medical waste incinerators are a major source of mercury and dioxin air emissions in the United States.
Under this rule, emissions at medical waste incinerators will be reduced 94 percent for mercury and 95 percent for dioxin. Several other major air pollutants from medical waste incinerators will be reduced by 75 to 98 percent, including emissions of particulate matter(soot), lead, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, cadmium and hydrogen chloride. Some of these pollutants are suspected of causing cancer or other serious health effects.

"By controlling emissions from medical waste incinerators, we are taking a significant step to reduce health risks to millions of Americans from harmful air pollutants," said Mary Nichols, EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation. "EPA has worked closely with small, community hospitals to make sure that this rule will be implemented cost-effectively, affordably and with common-sense flexibility."

Today's rule will apply to incinerators used by hospitals and health care facilities, as well as incinerators used by commercial waste disposal companies. Fewer than half of U.S. hospitals operate their own incinerators.

The regulation affects hospital, medical and infectious waste. Most of the items covered by EPA under this rule are not "infectious" waste, and their air emissions are no more toxic than emissions of ordinary municipal waste from homes and businesses.

The rule applies to all new and existing medical waste incinerators in the United States. EPA estimates there are approximately 2400 existing incinerators and that about 10-70 new (or modified) ones will be built in the next five years.

Today's rule for new and existing sources provides incinerator operators with a number of compliance options. Sources may choose whatever pollution control technologies they wish in meeting the standards.

EPA has worked closely with small, community hospitals to provide them with the most affordable way of meeting the new rules; these rural facilities will face less stringent emission limits under the regulation than do bigger sources, but they will still have to make changes. Small, remote hospitals contribute only two percent of all medical waste incinerator emissions.

In fact, an EPA economic analysis suggests that today's rule will not impose adverse economic impacts on any size hospital or health care facility that currently operates a medical waste incinerator; the Agency estimates that the average cost of a hospital stay will increase by less than 35 cents a day.

Existing facilities will have approximately three to five years to comply with the rule, while new facilities will have approximately six months to comply.

In 1995 EPA issued separate air pollution standards for municipal waste combustors that will reduce dioxin from these sources by 99 percent and mercury by 90 percent; additionally, in early 1999, the Agency will be issuing final rules for hazardous waste incinerators reducing dioxin by 78-90 percent and mercury by 86 percent.

The medical waste incinerator rule will appear soon in the Federal Register, but interested parties can download the rule immediately from the EPA Office of Air and Radiation web site on the Internet, under “recently signed rules”, at the following address: https://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/rules.html.

For further technical information on the final rule, contact Rick Copland at 919-541-5265 in EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, or e-mail him at: [email protected].

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