Fact Sheet on Stericycle, the company that bought IES

Fact sheet provided by Health Care Without Harm

For more information, contact:

Bradley Angel Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

Facts About Stericycle, Inc.

• Stericycle is the largest medical waste treatment and disposal company in the U.S. The company entered the business in 1989, and in the last few years has grown dramatically with more than 50 acquisitions, culminating with the purchase of all of Browning Ferris Industries' (BFI) medical waste disposal assets for $414 million in 1999.
  
  
• As of mid-2000 the company's assets were worth an estimated $595 million. According to CEO Mark Miller, Stericycle has a "current long term goal of becoming a $1 billion dollar company." In September 2000, Fortune Magazine listed the company as one of the ten fastest growing companies in the U.S.
  
  
• Stericycle has a market share of 22 percent and is nearly 12 times larger than its closest competitor. The company has more than a quarter of a million customers nationwide and sales that could hit $350 million in 2001.
  
  
• When Stericycle acquired BFI's medical waste facilities, it went from being a largely non-incineration company to operating 18 BFI incinerators across the country-most of which BFI had earlier committed to shut down. Despite the environmental and health hazards posed by incineration, Stericycle officials say that they expect to maintain at least some incineration capacity on a regional basis throughout the U.S.
  
  
• Stericycle uses an array of waste treatment and disposal options-including incineration, steam autoclaves, and a proprietary radiowave technology known as electrothermal deactivation (ETD)-to treat regulated medical waste (RMW). According to Stericycle, about 60 to 65 percent of the health care waste they receive is autoclaved, 27 to 32 percent is incinerated, and 8 percent is treated with ETD technology.
  
  
• In 1997, three workers at a Stericycle facility in Morton, WA contracted tuberculosis. A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2000 concluded that, "Processing non-decontaminated medical waste apparently resulted in tuberculosis transmissions to at least one biomedical waste treatment facility worker at a Washington state facility."
  
  
• In 1995, the state of Rhode Island and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) alleged that Stericycle mishandled pathogens in waste at the company's ETD facility in Woonsocket, RI, and exposed workers to the risk of exposure to pathogens in the wastes.
  
  
• Stericycle operates an incinerator north of the downtown area of St. Louis, MO, which has had numerous compliance problems over the years. Records on file with the St. Louis Division of Air Pollution Control demonstrate that when there is a mechanical failure at the incinerator, the facility can release air pollution through a back-up stack without any scrubber so that toxic chemicals can dodge safety controls for hours on end.
  
  
• Stericycle permanently closed its Lawrence, MA incinerator in November 2000 after pressure from the community and after concluding that the cost of upgrades for complying with EPA rules at that particular facility would be too expensive.
  
  
• Stericycle operates an incinerator at the Lone Butte Industrial Park on the Gila River Indian Community reservation near Phoenix, Arizona. Tribal members are increasingly calling for the end to the incinerator's operations on their land.