Illegal reuse of medical plastic a health risk
Every year on International Consumer Rights Day, China Central Television broadcasts a consumer rights protection program. This year’s show included a report on a business chain that connects plastic medical waste on one end with plastic articles for everyday use on the other.
Beijing News commented: Were it not for high cost of sterilization, plastic medical waste, which is generally made up of quality polyethylene and polypropylene materials, would be an ideal raw material for recycling, chinadaily.com.cn wrote.
But if the relevant laws and regulations are ignored and sterilization is omitted, as some workshops have done for a long time, the waste can be turned into profit. This practice unavoidably means plastic contaminated with harmful microorganisms is turned into plastic products that may pose an acute threat to public health.
It is estimated that more than 10 million tons of medical waste are produced every year in China, and less than 10 percent of it is properly treated, with the rest finding its way back into people’s lives or nature.
That about 15,000 medical establishments were investigated and punished for improper handling of their medical waste in 2017, according to a report by the nation’s top legislature, speaks volumes about the seriousness of the problem.
Hazardous and nonhazardous medical waste, which accounts for about 15 percent and 85 percent of the total respectively, must be separated from each other according to law, which many medical agencies and recycling organizations do not bother to do.
The slack oversight of the supervisory departments and lenient punishments for rule violators have allowed an underground business chain to form.
The easy and sustainable profits lubricate the whole system and encourage the nonfeasance of the parties involved.
The authorities must act to cure this acute health issue with concrete actions. Every dollar that is earned by the dirty recycling of plastic medical waste comes at a high cost to public health and environmental safety.
The World Health Organization has developed a comprehensive global guidance document ‘Safe Management of Waste from Healthcare Activities’, which sets out best practices for minimizing plastic medical waste, its recovery, handling, storage, transportation, handling and disposal.
The management of medical waste needs to be further strengthened and those charged with the unsafe disposal of plastic medical waste must be strictly punished if they fail to perform their duties.