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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has instituted a broad pollution prevention research program through the Office of Research and Development to support continued environmental improvements throughout the nation. The Agency is also responding to the national concern in regards to the generation and disposal of medical wastes. Recently, EPA's Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory (RREL) produced the "Guide to Waste Minimization in Selected Hospital Waste Streams" (1) with the cooperation of the California Department of Health Services (hereafter referred to as the "California Study"). The California Study serves as a manual for conducting waste minimization assessments at surgical and general medical hospitals to reduce the generation of hazardous wastes from chemotherapy and antineoplastic chemicals, formaldehyde, photographic chemicals, radionuclides, solvents, mercury, anestheic gases and other waste chemicals. In order to effectively implement its pollution prevention programs, the EPA is also investigating how the departments and agencies within the Federal community can help each other reduce their generation of wastes. As a part of these efforts, RREL provides staff and support to conduct waste minimization assessments under the Waste Reduction Evaluations and Assessments at Federal Sites (WREAFS) Program. Under the WREAFS program, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Cincinnati - Fort Thomas Medical Center (DVA-Cin) offered to host an assessment of pollution prevention opportunities at their facility (2). With the California study having researched the generation of hazardous wastes in hospital settings, the DVA-Cin study investigated the use of disposables in patient care in order to identify research opportunities for future solid waste minimization. |
