EPA drops "other shoe" on incinerator emissions.

new proposal would close virtually all hospital-based medical waste facilities

As noted in the October 1994 issue of NONWOVENS INDUSTRY, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has targeted certain types of incinerators for emission control restrictions under provisions of the Federal Clean Air Act. Last year, the EPA proposed new standards for large municipal waste burners and this year the agency is setting its sights on medical waste incinerators.

As this article was going to press, INDA had received an advance copy of a notice of proposed standards for medical waste incinerators. The standards are so strict that the EPA estimates they will result in the closure of up to 80% of all currently operating facilities and will prevent the construction of up to 80% of new facilities that would have been built if this proposal had not been made. In all, the proposal would add nearly $100 million a year in medical waste disposal costs.

If there is any good news for the nonwovens industry contained in this proposal, it is that all incineration facilities that are allowed to operate in the future will have to be designed with fabric filtration systems to achieve the emission control levels required by the EPA.

MACT Standards

Like the proposed rule for municipal solid waste incinerators, which was forwarded last year, the new proposal for medical waste facilities is based on provisions of the Federal Clean Air Act that require the EPA to determine "maximum achievable control technologies" (MACT) that are being practiced by the industry and the level of emission reductions that are being achieved by those technologies. The EPA may then require that the same emission control levels be achieved universally, provided that the economic consequences of that requirement are not too severe.

According to the preamble to the proposed rule, Congress specifically amended the Clean Air Act in 1990 to require that the EPA take action against various categories of incinerators, including medical waste incinerators. The preamble notes that the EPA estimates there are 3700 medical waste incinerators currently in operation and that 60% of these are operated by hospitals. According to the EPA, these incinerators are a "significant source of air pollution" such as hydrogen chloride, lead, cadmium, mercury, acid gasses and dioxin.

By adopting the proposed rule, according to the EPA, there would be a reduction of more than 95% of the pollutants released from these facilities. The rule would also result in greater prevention of emissions of fugitive fly ash and bottom ash, improved operator training and qualifications, new federal permit requirements and federal siting requirements for new facilities.

Control Technologies

The EPA notes that there are "wet" systems such as scrubbers and fabric filter systems (with and without carbon injection) that can be used in control emissions from medical waste incinerators and compares the performance capabilities of each.

Wet systems, for instance, are credited with "substantial reductions" in acid gasses and some reductions of cadmium, lead and dioxin, but do not prevent emissions of nitrogen oxides or mercury. Fabric filtration systems that utilize activated carbon injections are the most effective control devices in part because they result in significant reductions of dioxin and mercury.

For this reason, the EPA has set the MACT "floor" for both new and existing medical waste incineration facilities at a level that can only be achieved at present through the use of dry sorbent injection followed by fabric filtration. Should another technology emerge by which the same control levels can be reached, facilities would be free to adopt that technology, but currently there is no acceptable substitute to fabric filtration with carbon injection.

For existing facilities, the EPA notes that thought has been given to the possibility of distinguishing between medical waste incinerators capable of burning 50 pounds or less per hour, those capable of burning 100 pounds or less per hour and those capable of burning 200 pounds or less per hour. The agency has specifically requested comments on this issue, noting that some states have exempted the smallest incinerators from regulation and that other states have imposed less stringent requirements on small facilities.

Where Will The Waste Go?

The EPA acknowledges that the cost of retrofitting a fabric filtration/carbon injection system to most existing facilities will be prohibitively expensive and that hospitals will elect to dispose of medical waste by some other alternative. The EPA refers to this as the "switching scenario" and cites sanitary land fills, autoclaving and regional incineration as possible alternatives for facilities that do not elect to add the needed emission control equipment so that they can continue operating their incinerators.

How much extra will hospitals have to pay under the "switching scenario"? The EPA estimates that the nationwide annual additional cost for applying the proposed MACT standards to new facilities will be about $11.2 million each year and about $86 million for existing facilities. This breaks down to about $25/ton extra for new facilities and a $55/ton extra for existing facilities.

The EPA points out that several states, including Texas and New York, have already adopted laws that resulted in the closure of large numbers of medical waste incinerators and that 38 states in all either have regulations or are considering regulations that would restrict the operation of these facilities. The EPA also argues that "most facilities" that generate medical waste do not operate their own incinerators and that significant capacity for alternative medical waste disposal exists.

Next Steps

As this article was going to press, copies of the proposed rule were being forwarded to INDA members for their consideration. INDA's Healthcare Focused Interest Group will have primary responsibility for determining the association's response to the proposal.

INDA will also be looking to the U.S. Congress, which is currently debating both a "risk assessment" bill and a regulatory moratorium bill. Either of these bills, if passed into law, could have a direct impact on the EPA proposal.

The moratorium bill, for instance, could prevent the EPA from finalizing this proposal for quite some time. Moreover, if a risk assessment were passed, it could require the EPA to demonstrate the risks that would be removed - and the benefits that could be derived - as a means of justifying the nearly $100 million in annual costs that would result from this regulation. Some believe that the agency would be hard pressed to demonstrate any significant harm that has resulted from the emissions of the typical medical waste incinerator and that it would be extremely difficult to demonstrate enough damage to justify $100 million in additional annual costs to the healthcare industry.

Peter Mayberry is the director of government affairs for INDA, Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry. He works out of the Washington D.C. offices of Keller & Heckman, INDA's legal counsel. This Capital Comments column appears monthly in NONWOVENS INDUSTRY.