Are there alternatives to incineration for treating and disposing of medical waste?
EPA’s MWI standards and guidelines will affect the use of alternative technologies for treating medical waste. Because the new standards will be expensive to comply with, EPA estimates that few health care facilities are likely to install new MWIs and many facilities are likely to discontinue use of existing MWIs (we expect that 50% to 80% of the 2400 existing MWIs may be discontinued). Instead, facilities are likely to switch to other methods of waste disposal such as off-site commercial disposal or onsite disinfection technologies. Alternatives to incineration of medical waste include: • Thermal treatment, such as microwave technologies; • Steam sterilization, such as autoclaving; • Electropyrolysis; and • Chemical mechanical systems, among others. EPA has jurisdiction over medical waste treatment technologies which claim to reduce the infectiousness of the waste (i.e. that claim any antimicrobial activity) by use of a chemical. This jurisdiction comes from the Federal Insecticide, F
