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Use of Alternative Products
Mercury is used in numerous products in the medical industry. While
it has several chemical properties that make it a useful and unique
compound in the medical industry, it is very toxic in small doses.
It is very important to keep mercury-containing products out of
the medical waste stream so that mercury is not released into the
environment, where it can pose a threat to humans and wildlife.
How Does Mercury
Get Into the Medical Waste Stream?
Hospitals, laboratories, nursing homes, and other health care
institutions produce various types of trash. Mercury-containing
products can end up in regular trash or in medical waste. The exact
definition may vary from state to state, but medical waste is waste
that is infectious, i.e., covered with blood or blood products.
Medical waste is put into infectious waste bags (red bags) and
can be burned in medical waste incinerators (MWIs). If mercury
gets into the red bags as part of the medical waste and is incinerated
at high temperatures, it becomes gaseous and exits through smokestacks.
It can then settle on the ground and in the water.
The mercury then becomes available for ingestion by fish and wildlife.
Mercury accumulates in living tissue as it moves up the food chain
and eventually can be ingested by humans. State public health departments
have issued fish consumption advisories due to the presence of
mercury in fish tissue.
Use
Mercury-Free Products
One way to keep mercury-containing products out of the waste stream
is to purchase and use products that do not contain mercury.
Ask the people responsible for buying medical supplies, laboratory
solutions, and other medical products if they know of alternatives
to products that contain mercury.
As a last resort, if you are using products that contain mercury,
make sure they are disposed of properly and do not end up in the
red bag, where they might be incinerated. Make sure your facility
has a mercury spill cleanup kit on hand wherever mercury products
are used. Also, try recycling mercury-containing products as much
as possible.
By encouraging hospitals, laboratories, and other
medical facilities to buy mercury-free products, we can reduce
the amount of mercury that might wind up in medical waste incinerators.
CASE STUDY:
Mercury Product Substitution
Broward County, Florida, used a source substitution program to
divert nearly 1 ton of mercury per year in medical batteries from
incinerators or landfills. To implement the change from mercury
battery use, the county surveyed the types, uses, and quantities
of medical mercury batteries in use at county hospitals. Also surveyed
were other mercury-containing instruments, spill cleanup procedures,
and used thermostats and switches. It was found that individual
hospitals were using from 100 to 16,000 batteries per year, which
were disposed of in regular or biohazardous waste containers.
County staff then explained to area hospitals the problems with
and options for proper battery and mercury-containing waste. It
was emphasized that hospitals had legal responsibility for proper
management of the waste they generated. County personnel
returned to hospitals to confirm that staff understood federal,
state, and local regulations for waste management and reemphasized
that mercury-containing waste was unacceptable at resource recovery
facilities or landfills.
Hospitals gladly changed battery use and waste management procedures
when staff were educated about the mercury content of batteries
and alternatives to mercury battery use. Of the alternative courses
of action available to county hospitals, the preferred course of
action for mercury waste reduction was substitution of zinc air
batteries for mercury batteries. Mercury batteries on hand were
either returned to suppliers or managed as hazardous waste through
established haulers. The county calculated that more than 63,000
mercury batteries had been entering Broward County's waste stream,
or in excess of 1,750 lb of mercury per year, based on an 8.4-volt
mercury battery containing nearly 0.5 oz of mercury.
Zinc air batteries had been in use for telemetry cardiac monitors
at the time the decision to make the change from mercury batteries
was made because they perform better. While zinc air batteries
are more expensive, they also last longer. One disadvantage of
the zinc air battery is that it continues to discharge when not
in use, potentially elevating the cost of the batteries over the
long run. However, hospital monitors are usually in constant use
anyway, so this was not considered a significant factor.
Taking into account the higher cost of alternative batteries and
the avoided costs of managing mercury waste, most hospitals achieved
net savings by the switch to zinc air batteries. One hospital was
even able to purchase alternative batteries at a cost equal to
that for mercury batteries.
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