&EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agancy
Solid Waste and
Emergency Response
(OS-305)
EPA/S30-SW-90-087S
December 1990
Office of Solid Waste
Medical Waste
Management in the
United States
Second Interim
Report to Congress
Executive Summary
Printed on Recycled Paper
-------
EPA/530-SW-9G-087B
Second Interim Report to Congress
Executive Summary
Medical Waste Management
in the United States
December 1990
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Solid Waste
-------
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Since the Medical Waste Tracking Act was enacted in the fall of 1988, EPA has
developed a coordinated, multi-component program to address concerns about medical
waste management, and the lack of information on the subject This report - the
second of three reports that EPA is required to prepare under the Act - describes each
of the components in the program, discusses the impacts of the program, and provides
an update on the status of research activities that have been initiated for each of the 12
subject areas identified in the Act.
EPA's medical waste program is comprised of five integrated components.
Briefly, they are:
• a tracking system designed to ensure that medical waste transported off-
site reaches its destination;
• a management program designed to ensure that waste is properly
segregated, packaged, marked, labelled and stored prior to transport;
• information gathering research, and analysis to fill data gaps, evaluate the
results of Agency actions, and enable informed debate concerning the
future of Federal medical waste-regulation;
• an education, outreach and training program targeted at both the regulated
and unregulated communities, including Federal and State officials charged
with implementing the program, other Federal agencies involved with
medical waste (e.g., OSHA) and the home health care sector; and
• an enforcement strategy designed to maximize innovative enforcement by
the covered States, encourage the regulated community to comply with the
program and deter and'punish noncompliance.
The regulatory components of the program terminate at the end of the demonstration
program in June of 1991. The other components of the program, such as outreach to
the home health care sector, however, may continue indefinitely.
Although the Agency believes that it is premature to evaluate the success
of the program that has been in place approximately a year, it has identified a number
of direct and indirect effects on the management, handling, and disposal of medical
waste resulting from the program. The most significant results include the development
of a regulatory program that includes standards for tracking and managing medical
waste, and expanding the state of knowledge in several areas related to medical
waste generation, management, and disposal. The program has also had several
indirect effects, including the encouragement of innovation in treatment
technologies, the revaluation of home health care waste management, some likely
Ill
./
-------
reduction in the severity of beach wash-ups, and the contribution to program
development in noncovered States.
«••
In the finS interim report, EPA summarized information that was then
available, and outlined an agenda for additional research on each of 12 specific areas
regarding medical .waste that were identified in the Act. This second interim report
provides a research update and forecast on each of those subject areas. Since the
first report, EPA has made substantial progress in several areas, including
characterization of the generation and management of medical waste, and
development of guidelines for home health care waste. Additionally, several studies
are currently underway which will contribute greatly to the understanding of treatment
technologies, and the risks associated with the medical waste.
w
-------
-------
------- |