Save 50% – 305-677-2343!

What is the Environmental Impact of Hollywood Medical Waste Removal?

Different health care institutions, like hospitals and their personnel work tirelessly to protect and treat us from any sickness or disease. Without them, we cannot even imagine how much more difficult our lives would be. However, all those drugs that our doctors prescribe and nurses apply to us come with a price. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), health care facilities produce up to 1,000,000 tons of medical waste every year.

What is truly disturbing that this is not just some ordinary waste. Waste generated by medical institutions can often be bio-hazardous and thus extremely dangerous to humans and the environment if if medical facilities do not observe their medical waste management Hollywood commitments thoroughly. One important task here is protecting the environment with proper bio-hazardous waste removal.

Who are the Sources of Medical Waste?

There are a number of medical waste sources and they all have a bigger or lesser impact on our environment. These sources include: sharps (needles, syringes, scalpels and other medical instruments that can lacerate or puncture the patient’s skin), blood and blood products, body fluids, pathological waste, chemicals (such as those used in chemotherapy or x-rays) and many more.

What About Regulation?

Fortunately, there is no lack of regulations, both federal and state when it comes to bio-hazardous waste removal. The first comprehensive federal government act came in 1988. This was the Medical Waste Tracking Act (MWTA), which came after several incidents of used syringes and needles washing up in the East coast of the United States. The federal government responded quickly to this potential threat to the environment, giving EPA the task of monitoring health care providers for their medical waste management Hollywood.

Of course, the MWTA act was, since then even more improved and today every state in the U.S. has a set of regulations that serve to protect us and our ecosystem from wrongful medical waste management Hollywood.

Prescription Drugs Regulations

But while medical care facilities are being monitored by the EPA and OSHA (Occupational Health Safety Administration) for how they perform their bio-hazardous waste removal duties and while they have to abide to a number of laws and regulations, the situation with medical waste coming from individuals is largely unchecked.

One report from the Associated Press indicates that prescription drugs have been found in the drinking water of more than 40 million US citizens. The problem is further aggravated by over-the-counter drugs.

It is hard to determine what kind of long term effect will this have on the ecosystem, especially on the waters and life in it, but it can’t be very good. Of course, what concerns most people even more is how will this impact their health? Well, with the increase in the use of prescription drugs and sales of over-the-counter drugs if the situation with the lack of regulations is not changed, things are not looking good.

Final Thoughts

If our atmosphere is to be protected from medical waste and those hospitals and laboratories that don’t find it necessary to improve the standards of their Hollywood bio-hazardous waste removal, then we need even stricter regulations in place.