Integrating occupational and environmental health: a case study of emerging technologies for medical waste treatment.
Integrating occupational and environmental health: a case study of emerging technologies for medical waste treatment.
Abstract
Medical waste incineration is a leading source of dioxin production in the United States. Concern about dioxin, among environmental health advocates and community groups, led to the creation of the San Francisco Bay Area Dioxin Group and clean air policy limiting dioxin emissions. While the resulting regulatory environment became unfriendly towards emissions from incinerators, community groups pressured for closure of the local medical waste incinerator. With the closure of the incinerator imminent, the San Francisco Bay Area community reached out to communities in the neighboring county and in Arizona where the medical waste would eventually land for treatment. Environmental health advocates in California and Arizona worked together to educate the workers and community about the health effects and were successful in advocating for the incinerator in Arizona also to close. This session will discuss the health effects of incineration and emerging waste treatment technologies and the collaboration between labor and the environment groups to protect occupational and environmental health.
Emergency technology to supplant outmoded and closing medical waste incinerators provided the foundation for collaboration between labor and environmental groups to proactively protect the workers and the environment from emerging technology.
Speakers:
Sue Chiang, Greenaction
Oakland, California
Mamta Khanna, Center for Environmental Health
San Francisco, California
Peter Orris, MD
University of Illinois – Chicago
Susan Wilburn, MPH, RN
American Nurses Association
susan.wilburn@worldnet.att.net
This page updated Friday April 02 2004