NDP wants waste disposal examined
Videotape suggests incinerator not
burning all biomedical products
By Tanya Collier, Cape Breton Post, February 6, 1996
The provincial government is being pressured by
the NDP to look at alternatives to burning
biomedical waste in light of video footage filmed by
a concerned citizen.
Don Chard, the NDP's provincial environment critic,
said the provincial government must move quickly
to find alternatives to burn the province's
biomedical waste at the Cape Breton Regional
Municipality (CBRM) incinerator on Grand Lake
Road.
Seeing used syringes containing unknown liquids,
unburnt blood product containers and a variety of
other unidentifiable hospital products, "makes you
feel sick," said Chard.
"If that's what you're left with afterwards, what goes
up the stacks," he questioned during a news
conference held at Sydney Victoria MP Peter
Mancini's office Friday.
"It's not an effective burn. Anything that can be burnt
should be ash."
Marlene Kane, concerned citizen and member of
the Joint Action Group (JAG), videotaped unburnt
biomedical waste in ash at the incinerator landfill
about two weeks ago. She has voiced her ongoing
concerns about the incinerator's performance to
municipal, provincial and federal representatives
for the past two years. Each time she has been told
the incinerator was meeting suggested guidelines.
Paul Oldford, manager of solid waste at the CBRM
incinerator, said the pictures and video taken by
Kane are "dramatic" but, the biomedical waste is
not a problem.
Unburned biomedical garbage
'ridiculous'
By Tera Camus / Cape Breton Bureau. Chronicle Herald, 2/6/99
Sydney - Blood-filled syringes, intravenous bags and medical
tweezers were a few of the items found in unburned waste at the
municipal incinerator by a local activist toting a video camera.
Marlene Kane's 15-minute video, shot Jan. 24 in a smouldering
ash pile at the Cape Breton regional incinerator, also shows a Tim
Hortons cup, a Zellers flyer, plastic bags, empty hospital-fluid
containers and even a doctor's mask.
The video also shows a stream of water flowing from the pile of
ash.
"Only in Cape Breton, dear," said an exasperated Juanita
McKenzie, a resident who lives downstream on Frederick Street.
"They're bringing in that hazardous waste from Halifax. We're
going to be known not only as North America's worst toxic area ...
but known as the worst biomedical hazardous site. This is
ridiculous."
Sydney-Victoria MP Peter Mancini, who showed the video to the
media on Friday, called on Cape Breton Regional Municipality to
close the facility.
"What isn't being burned is what bothers me," he said.
"I'm concerned as a resident and as the area representative. It's
about three miles from my home."
He said unburned items that are buried in that location pose a risk
to workers and the community, because toxins could leach into the
polluted tar-pond and coke-oven site.
"I'm fighting to get more money to clean up the tar ponds, and at
the top of the site there's this biomedical waste problem," he said.
The municipality began importing biomedical waste two years
ago. The contract is worth about $75,000 annually.
Paul Oldford, the region's waste manager, told reporters on Friday
that 95 per cent of the waste is being burned. He wasn't returning
calls in the afternoon.
But Ms. Kane says her video shows that's not true.
"There's an incomplete burnout," she said. "When I still see waste
that's not burned fully, I have to question how the incinerator is
operating on a daily basis."
Mike Britten of the Joint Action Group, the advisory group in
charge of the downtown cleanup, says he didn't see the video and
is not concerned.
"If it's being buried in a lined landfill ... then the chemicals
associated with that material shouldn't be able to leach out into the
environment," he said.
Provincial NDP environment critic Don Chard said other methods
of disposing medical waste must be explored.
"I can't believe that you can continue to inflict this kind of chemical
exposure on people and not have it impact on their health. ... It's
no wonder we have high disease rates in Sydney."
He said it's the province's responsibility to ensure people are not
at risk from improper burning.
Incinerator to be probed
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