Medical waste management Deerfield Beach, in addition to handling, treating and disposing of waste produced by hospitals and other health care facilities, also include its transportation.
Medical wastes of all kinds are just one of the many items that are transported on the roads in the United States. For a number of reasons, their transportation is strictly regulated by state and federal laws.
First of all, medical waste material can often be hazardous in many different ways. For this reason, this waste often has to be stored in special containers or bags when being transported from one place to another (most often from the health care facility to the medical waste management Deerfield Beach service company or from one of those to the designated landfill).
For example, sharps waste can be dangerous on many different levels. For one, this waste includes instruments such as needles and scalpels, whose sole purpose is either puncturing or lacerating the skin during diagnosing, treating or testing patients. Once they are used, they can’t simply end up mixed with the other medical waste when it is transported somewhere. Instead, sharps waste has to be packaged in secured, puncture-resistant and leak-proof containers. Only then can these containers be placed in waste bags loaded into a transport vehicle and driven to their designated location.
Medical waste transport vehicles often need to be tightly shut so the cargo they contain doesn’t in any way get in contact with the atmosphere and pollute it. This is especially important for radioactive waste, toxic or chemical waste. If these or other types of infectious medical waste end up released, they can pose a great threat to public health.
DOT and EPA Regulations of Transporting Medical Waste
According to DOT regulations, the transporter is responsible for proper packaging of medical waste materials when it is transported off site. This means that the staff responsible for both packaging and shipping need to be both certified accordingly and well trained.
For infectious medical waste, DOT regulations also have a set of special rules that the transporters have to confirm with their state medical waste management Deerfield Beach agencies to see what applies and what doesn’t. In addition to DOT regulations, shippers of medical waste should also consult the EPA for guidelines.
Finally, it is not enough that health care facilities and their staff simply load a couple of vans or trucks with medical waste material and then send it to the landfill. For safety purposes, these transport vehicles also need to be properly monitored from the moment when medical waste gets loaded into them (to make sure that noting is leaking for example), during their route (the drivers are required to keep a log on what they are driving, from where, to where and times) and to the moment that the vehicle arrives at its destination and its cargo gets unloaded.
Once the vehicle that was transporting deerfield beach medical waste has returned to the facility, it should be decontaminated and disinfected carefully before other waste can be loaded into it.
