Kevin Noel

Cradle to Grave Medical Waste Management

Under the cradle to grave medical waste requirement, you may be more responsible for your regulated medical waste than you think.

Cradle to Grave Medical Waste Management

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Cradle to Grave Medical Waste Management

Under the cradle to grave medical waste requirement, you may be more responsible for your regulated medical waste than you think.

You did your part by properly handling, segregating, containing, and having your waste collected by a medical waste disposal company… but you are not off the hook quite yet.

As a medical waste generator, you should be very familiar with the cradle to grave concept.

What is cradle to grave?

Cradle to grave is a regulatory framework established to ensure proper management and disposal of hazardous wastes.

The cradle to grave requirement states that hazardous waste generators are responsible for their waste from the point of generation (cradle) to the point of final disposal (grave).

As a healthcare facility, you are not exempt! This applies to your regulated medical waste.

By following cradle to grave requirements, healthcare facilities and other hazardous waste generators help protect public health and the environment as it relates to their medical waste.

Healthcare Facilities Responsibility

Under cradle to grave requirements, you as a healthcare facility are responsible for:

Generation

This is the part which refers to the “cradle” in the requirement. At this stage of the hazardous waste journey, you should be certain you are properly segregating medical waste into the appropriate containers which ensures it is disposed of properly. This includes biohazard waste, sharps waste, pathological waste, pharmaceutical waste, and hazardous waste.

Storage

Since waste is stored before it is collected for disposal, it is important that all regulated medical waste is stored properly. This means having appropriate containers, labeling them properly, having a designated accumulation area, preparing the waste for transportation, and paying attention to required disposal frequencies for each stream of waste you generate.

Transportation

You should contact a trustworthy medical waste disposal company who specializes in medical waste disposal. They will come to your facilities and haul away your waste for proper treatment in compliance with all requirements of the Department of Transportation.

Treatment

Your medical waste disposal service will take your medical waste containers to a medical waste treatment center where all waste will be properly sterilized until it is deemed non-hazardous. This is typically done by autoclave, incineration, or microwave technology and differs based on the waste stream. 

Disposal:

This is the final stage in what happens to medical waste and refers to the “grave” part in cradle-to-grave. After the waste has been properly sterilized and all potentially infectious materials are gone, it can be disposed of appropriately. At this stage, you as a medical waste generating facility should receive waste manifests and documents of destruction to retain for your records.

Every step of the process is regulated because messing up one step means that medical waste could end up improperly disposed of.

For example, if at the generation stage you do not properly segregate the waste and non-hazardous pharmaceutical waste is placed in a biohazard bin, it will not be incinerated as required at the final stage of disposal.

Choosing a Medical Waste Company

It is important that you are choosing a medical waste disposal company that you trust, because the last 3 steps of proper disposal (transportation, treatment, and disposal) are in their hands.

Since you are still responsible for the waste after it leaves your facilities, you don’t want to choose a lousy partner.

Some things to check out before picking your partner:

Compliance: Does the company have a favorable compliance record? 

Reviews: Have you taken a look at their reviews?

Location: Is this a local company who thoroughly understands the regulations around collecting, transporting, and disposing of medical waste in your state?

Background on “Cradle to Grave”

Cradle to grave requirements are enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) which includes generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous wastes. 

The cradle to grave requirements are a result of environmental disasters that displayed more waste regulations were necessary.

Prior to this, a very small percentage of hazardous wastes were properly disposed of.

The RCRA was enacted in 1976 to address increasing problems in the United States revolving around hazardous wastes and their impacts on human health and the environment.

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Health care facilities save 34% on average when choosing Eco Medical for their California medical waste disposal needs

Eco Medical CEO

KEVIN NOEL

Sales Account Executive

Passionate about creating exposure around practical products and services. My goal is to aid California medical facilities in exploring a more local, affordable, and personable service for medical waste disposal.

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