Hospital gets help recycling fluorescent lights

By Frank (F. Ellsworth) Lockwood

Published in The Hermiston Herald, January 23, 2003

Hermiston--  A special grant is now aimed at easing the pain of recycling- for hospitals.  The grant will help Good Shepherd Medical Center deal with used Fluorescent light tubes, which contain mercury.

In the past two years, while treating over 100,000 annual aches, pains, and health concerns, Good Shepherd reportedly handled about 14 tons of paper- enough to cause a real headache for any business other than a stouthearted recycler.

But paper is just one waste stream for Good Shepherd Health Care system, Plastic is another.  And the hospital and other aware businesses realize that burned- out- fluorescent light tubes can prepare a risk to the environment.  Gone are the days when the tubes could be just dumped into the landfill, now businesses are supposed to dispose of them properly.

“If it comes in the front door, it’s got to go out the back door sooner or later,” the hospital’s Environmental Services Manager, Ken Gummer said.  He was speaking of the tons of supplies, food, wrappers and other items that must be disposed of each year. Gummer’s job is to see that the waste is handled in a way that protects the environment and the public.

Inoperable fluorescent tubes can create a hazard because they still contain toxic metals, including cadmium and mercury.  Gummer said, Mercury is considered a serious health hazard and according to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), health care facilities are the fourth – largest source of mercury in the environment.  Mercury, which is highly toxic to the human central nervous system, kidneys and liver, is commonly used in blood pressure monitoring devices, thermometers, batteries and fluorescent light bulbs.

Good Shepherd will receive a share of a grant that helps health providers to recycle mercury-containing fluorescent lamps.  Grant recipients contribute matching money, staff time or services.  The City of Milwaukie, working in partnership with the Portland-based Oregon Center for Environmental Health, was awarded $20,238 to help the Center develop fluorescent lamp recycling program at Legacy Health System in Portland, Asante Health System in Medford, and Good Shepherd Health System In Hermiston.

Gummer said he had not yet been told the amount that Good Shepherd would receive, but the money will help pay transportation costs to ship used fluorescent bulbs to a proper disposal sight.  According to a DEQ press release, The grant is an incentive for hospitals to participate in a statewide recycling program.  At least 50,000 mercury-containing fluorescent lamps will be diverted from the solid waste stream from 10 to 15 hospitals in the first year, with additional hospitals taking part in the future.  The Oregon Center for Environmental Health-part of the Oregon health Care Without Harm campaign- will monitor recycling efforts at each participating hospital, will train staff and will help set up the program.

Good Shepherd has already been training for better waste management, and has hosted one of three seminars on Health Care Without Harm.  The seminars teach health care representatives how to keep material out of the waste stream, through recycling, and how to reduce toxins to the environment.  Invitations were sent out to hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care institutions.  “We re trying to promote recycling in rural Oregon,” Gummer said.

More information is available on the internet at www.noharm.org, he said, “ Oregon was the first state to ban fever thermometers last year, in early 2002, because of mercury, Gummer said.

Various hospital waste streams are kept separate from each other and, if hazardous, treated accordingly.  For example, biohazards are handled, by contract, through a company and are not part the universal waste stream.  Waste silver, present in film, is extracted by a contractor.  The hospital is looking for a sponsor for a plastics recycling program. And the hospital will dispose of diabetics needles if they bring them in a proper container as described by the law, Gummer said. As to paper waste, the hospital uses Columbia Industries, a not- for-profit company that hires physically and mentally challenged people to recycle paper. “We make a lot of paper,” Gummer said.

Fluorescent tubes, though small in terms of the tons of them used by the hospital, are a potentially harmful waste stream because of the mercury they contain.  Laws that were changed a long time ago are now being enforced, but that is good.  Gummer said, “We don’t want to put nasty things down the drain, or to contaminate the atmosphere.”  Recycling also reduce the landfill bill, he said.  GSH Public Relations Director, Tricia Fenley commented, “Good Shepherd is excited to participate in the trend towards recycling.”