Dive Brief:
- Landfill operators in Mahoning County, OH, are requesting the aid of officials to help the landfill’s radiation monitor from being triggered by household medical waste.
- John Campbell, the manager of Waste Management’s landfill in Springfield Township, OH, told the local solid waste policy committee that the site has experienced a surge of radiation alarms, stemming from iodine.
- Campbell has asked the county board of health to request that doctors and clinics talk to their patients who are using radioactive medical materials to avoid disposing of them into bins alongside household waste. Another solution is for consumers to return substances back to the medical facility for disposal or store these substances for one week to lower their amount of radioactivity before discarding them.
Dive Insight:
The Mahoning County health commissioner, Patricia Sweeney, said that low-level radiation from household medical waste is not a public safety hazard and stressed that “It is not a public health threat.” In addition, the Ohio Department of Health does not consider this waste a public threat in landfills.
Mary Helen Smith, the environmental health director at the Mahoning County Health Department, said, “Waste Management is trying to be proactive and respond prudently to these incidences that are not a public health threat, but still manage the ones that are.”
