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Outdoor Air - Industry, Business, and Home: Hospitals
Additional Information
Tools and Calculators
You can help hospitals reduce emissions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) that may affect hospital employees, patients, their families, and the community by encouraging hospitals to conduct these activities:
- Locate sources of mercury
- Communicate mercury dangers
- Replace sources of mercury
- Develop a mercury housekeeping program
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Locate Sources of Mercury
How?- Conduct a regular mercury audit to determine where mercury may be used.
- When forming a mercury audit team, use employees from all parts of the hospital. They have the best knowledge regarding where sources of mercury pollution may occur.
- Formulate a plan based on the results of the audit to reduce sources of mercury.
- Reduces mercury emissions.
- Time and labor to conduct an audit and develop a plan.
- Check out Wisconsin's Mercury Use: Hospitals and Clinics (draft) (PDF). (38 pp, 253 KB)
Communicate Mercury Dangers
How?- Develop a training and communication program aimed at increasing general awareness of mercury health impacts.
- Train employees to look for ways to reduce mercury pollution.
- Develop and implement a protocol to prevent hospital employees from disposing of mercury in sharps, infectious, or any other waste containers.
- Reduces mercury emissions.
- Training costs.
- Learn more about the problem of disposing of mercury in medical waste.
- Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, a partnership between EPA and other organizations, sponsors awards for local efforts to eliminate mercury.
- Mercury Fever Thermometer Information (PDF) (1 pg, 78 KB) by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Replace Sources of Mercury
How?- Alternatives to mercury thermometers include electronic, infrared, chemical strip, gallium, indium, and tin thermometers.
- Mercury blood pressure cuffs can be replaced by aneroid and electronic blood pressure cuffs.
- Use gastrointestinal tubes weighted with tungsten or water instead of mercury.
- Replace mercury pharmaceutical products with mercury-free preservatives.
- Identify why mercury is present as an active ingredient in laboratory chemicals. It may be possible to identify a mercury-free alternative.
- Insist on mercury disclosures of all incoming products to the hospital.
- Insist on using recovered and recycled mercury in all products that do not yet have mercury-free alternatives.
- Reduces mercury emissions.
- A hospital that instituted a mercury reduction program removed 440 pounds of mercury from thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, and other equipment (EPA).
- Reduces cost and time spent on spill cleanup.
- Minimizes the costs associated with mercury collection, storage, recycling or disposal; paperwork for tracking hazardous waste disposal; training for hospital employees who handle mercury-containing products or respond to spills; and complying with regulations.
- Capital costs for new equipment.
- Training employees to use new equipment and products.
- Health Care Without Harm has information on replacing mercury sources in hospitals.
- Check out alternatives to mercury products.
Develop a Mercury Housekeeping Program
How?- Ensure that equipment and operating procedures meet all standards for handling mercury. This helps avoid inadvertent mercury air emissions.
- Monitor and maintain the working condition of mercury-containing equipment. Label equipment.
- Establish procedures on how and where mercury may be used and disposed.
- Create and implement spill cleanup procedures for the recovery and cleanup of mercury spills.
- Recycle mercury whenever reducing the amount of mercury used is not feasible.
- Reduces mercury emissions.
- Training employees to use new procedures.
- Increased labor cost for maintenance and other activities.