Solid Waste Report

4/12/02

See Also:

Read the Stericycle statement confirming the end of incineration at the site

May 15, 2002 Chicago: Stericycle Shareholders Meeting! Greenaction and Health Care Without Harm Challenge Medical Waste Company to End Incineration. Read the Message To Shareholders, and read the Health Care Without Harm report on Stericycle.

Read Industry Journal Report on Protest & Press Conference at Stericycle Shareholder Meeting

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Stericycle Slammed by HCWH Report For Excessive Incineration Practices

With Stericycle catapulting into position as the nation's largest medical waste disposal company, health and environmental groups are finding it hard not to keep an eye on it.

Last week Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) released a 52-page report supporting its position that Stericycle "must clean up its policies and practices." It criticized Stericycle's continued use of incineration "despite the availability of cleaner and safer medical waste disposal technologies."

As of February, HCWH counted 40 Stericycle-run facilities, 12 of which are incinerators. While only 2 percent of the waste stream is classified as pathological or chemotherapy waste — required by some states to be incinerated — Stericycle incinerated almost a third of its waste in 2000. Roughly 65 percent was steam-sterilized using autoclaves and about 8 percent underwent electrothermal deactivation, HCHW said.

"A more proactive environmental approach by Stericycle would be to shut down incinerators except to the extent needed to service the very small portion of the waste stream for which incineration is legally mandated."

A Stericycle official responded to the report with surprise, saying he thought the company had an ongoing dialogue with HCWH.

"The biggest thing that surprised me was the general inaccuracy, both factual and contextual, of the report," Anthony Tomasello, Stericycle executive vice president, told SWR.

Tomasello said Stericycle has made "tremendous progress in fulfilling our mission toward the environment." In 2001, it incinerated 18 percent of the total waste stream, and it is tracking 15 percent so far this year.

HCWH spokeswoman Stacy Malkan was skeptical about the numbers. "For the largest medical waste hauler, 18 percent is a significant amount to still be incinerating."

In a past letter to HCWH, Stericycle agreed the amount incinerated "should be systematically reduced to the lowest feasible levels." But it stressed that 8 percent to 10 percent will always need incineration under some states' laws. That estimate, however, includes patient records that are required to be destroyed under privacy laws.

Hospitals Are the Biggest Offenders

Tomasello pointed a finger instead toward onsite incineration by hospitals, where he said the bulk of incineration is being done.

"We have a goal to continually reduce the volume [of waste incinerated]. But we need the participation from hospitals and health care professions.

I am pretty happy with where we are now, but we will try to get better."

"Stericycle's corporate policy is to move toward more environmentally responsible methods, but they are still fighting tooth-and-nail to keep their incinerators," said Greenaction Executive Director Bradley Angel, who is fighting Stericycle incineration on a local front in Arizona.

Watchdog groups feel compelled to scrutinize Stericycle because of fears that the company is becoming "such a big player that it is almost a monopoly and it will decide it can do whatever it wants," Angel told SWR.