Blood
East metro trash facility receiving blood, organ infectious waste
Nov
Blood, organs discovered at MN trash facility
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is investigating how a large amount of infectious human waste — including blood and organs — ended up in the trash facility for Ramsey and Washington Counties, where homes and businesses send their garbage.
It’s not built to handle infectious waste, so employees were shocked when a lot of it started showing up.
More than 1,200 tons of trash is dumped at the Ramsey/Washington Recycling and Energy Center on an average day. Most of it gets pushed onto conveyor belts and sorted.
“Some of the materials that we’re seeing include IV tubing that might have liquids, including bloody suction devices, blood-soaked bandages,” said Michael Reed, the Ramsey County Public Health division manager for recycling and energy.
“And it seemed like the more we looked, the more we found coming from multiple locations,” Reed said.
The state requires healthcare facilities to have waste management plans identifying their infectious waste and where it goes. They’re supposed to train employees about proper disposal.
Sending infectious waste to the Ramsey/Washington facility can be much less expensive than proper disposal, but when it’s spotted, healthcare facilities end up spending even more on removing it.
They also got the MPCA involved.
Employees at the recycling and energy center felt their health at risk almost every day.
