1    Basic Plant Design    An approved plant must have four distinct sections that demonstrate three principles of Turbulence, Residence Time and Temperature are inbuilt in the plant design .The regulated sections may include but not limited to:

Overall plant layout.
Feed chamber/ charging
Primary Combustion Chamber.
Secondary Combustion Chamber.
Particulate Scrubbers
Acid Gas Scrubbers
The stack/ chimney.
2    Feeding And Charging    Controlled hygienic, mechanical or automatic feeding methods have to be used which will not influence the air temperature in the primary and secondary chambers of the incinerator negatively.

No waste is to be fed into the incinerator:

1.    Until the minimum temperatures have been reached.
2.    If the minimum combustion temperatures are not maintained.
3.    Whenever the previous charge has not been completely combusted in the case of batch feeding.

4.    Until such time as the addition of more waste will not cause the design parameters of the incinerator to be exceeded.

3    Primary Combustion Chamber    The primary combustion chamber must:

1.    Be accepted as the primary combustion zone.
2.    Be equipped with a burner/s burning gas/fuel or low sulphur liquid fuels. Other combustion methods will be judged on merits.

3.    Ensure primary air supply is controlled efficiently
4.    Ensure minimum exit temperature is not less than 850oC

4    Secondary Combustion Chamber (Afterburner).    The secondary combustion chamber must:

1.    Be accepted as secondary combustion zone.
2.    Be fitted with secondary burner/s burning gas or low sulphur liquid fuel or any suitable fuel.

3.    Ensure secondary air supply is controlled efficiently.
4.    Ensure flame contact with all gases is achieved.
5.    Ensure residence time is not less than two (2) seconds.
6.    Ensure the gas temperature as measured against the inside wall in the secondary chamber & not in the flame zone, is not less than 1100oC.

7.    Ensure the oxygen content of the emitted gases is not less than 11%.
8.    Ensure both primary and the combustion temperatures are maintained until all waste has been completely combusted

5    Particulate Removers    A mechanical particulate collector must be incorporated after secondary combustion chamber for removal of particulate pollutants entrained in the flue gas stream. The particulate collectors may include any of the following or a combination thereof:

Cyclone separator
Electrostatic precipitators
Fabric filters
6    Chimney / Stack    1.    The chimney should have a minimum height of 10 meters above ground level and clear the highest point of the building by not less than 3 meters for all roofs. The topography and height of adjacent buildings within 50 meters radius should be taken into account.

2.    If possible the chimney should be visible to the operator from the feeding area.
3.    The addition of dilution air after combustion in order to achieve the requirement of these guidelines is unacceptable.

4.    The minimum exit velocity should be 10 m/s and at least twice the surrounding wind speed (Efflux velocity = wind speed x 2) whichever is higher to ensure no down washing of exiting gases.

5.    Point for the measurement of emissions shall be provided.

7    Instrumentation    Instrument for determining the inside wall temperature and not burner flame temperature must be provided for both primary and secondary chambers.

2.    An audible and visible alarm must be installed to warn the operator when the secondary temperature drops to below the required temperature.

3.    In addition to the above the following instruments may also be required.
A carbon monoxide and/or oxygen meter/recorder
A smoke density meter/recorder
A gas flow meter/recorder
A solid particulate meter/recorder
Any other instrument or measurement that may be considered necessary

8    Location / Siting    1.    Must be sited in accordance with the relevant local municipal authority planning scheme, the topography of the area and be compatible with premises in the neighborhood,

2.    Must be housed in a suitably ventilated room.

9    Emission Limits    1.    Combustion efficiency:

Combustion efficiency (CE) shall be at least 99.00%
The Combustion efficiency is computed as follows;

C.E=             % CO2           x 100
% CO2 + CO

2.    The temperature of the primary chamber shall be 800 ± 50o C

3.    The secondary chamber  gas residence time shall be at least 1 (one) second at 1050 ± 50o C, with 3% Oxygen in the stack gas.

4    Opacity of the smoke must not exceed 20% Viewed from 50 meters with naked eyes
5.    All the emission to the air other than steam or water vapour must be odourless and free from mist, fume and droplets.

6.    The Authority may require that the certificate holder have tests carried out by an accredited institution to determine stack and/or ground level concentrations of the following substances.

Cadmium and compounds as     Cd
Mercury                                      Hg
Thallium                                     Tl

Chromium                                  Cr
Beryllium                                    Be
Arsenic                                       As
Antimony                                    Sb
Barium                                        Ba
Lead                                            Pb
Silver                                          Ag
Cobalt                                         Co
Copper                                        Cu
Manganese                                  Mn
Tin                                               Sn
Vanadium                                     V
Nickel                                           Ni
Hydrochloric                                HCL
Hydrofluoric acid                         HF
Sulphur dioxide                           S02

7.    A 99.99% destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) for each principal organic hazardous constituent (POHC) in the waste feed where:

DRE = [(Win – Wout)/Win]*100
Where: Win = mass feed rate of the POHC in the waste stream fed to incinerator, and
Wout = mass emission rate of POHC in the stack prior to the release to the atmosphere.

8.    The average dioxin and furan concentration in the emissions should not exceed 80ng/m3 total dioxins and furans if measured for a period of 6 to 16 hours.

Note:
All pollutant concentrations must be expressed at Oo C and 1.013 x 10 5 N/m2, dry gas and 11% oxygen correction.

Oxygen correction is computed as:

Es =     21 – Os    x EM
21 – OM

Where:    Es    = Calculated emission concentration at the standard percentage oxygen concentration
EM    = Measured emission concentration
Os    = Standard oxygen concentration
OM    = measured oxygen concentration

10    Operation    1.    Materials destined for incineration should be of known origin and composition and must be only incinerated in a furnace that is registered for the particular type of waste.

2.    A record must be kept of the quantity, type and origin of the waste to be incinerated.
3.    The incinerator must be preheated to working temperature before charging any waste.
4.    The incinerator must not be overcharged.
5.    The incinerator must be in good working order at all times and must not be used if any component fails. Any malfunction should be recorded in a log book and reported to the relevant authority.

6.    The incinerator operator and all relevant staff must be trained to the satisfaction of the relevant control authority.

11    Housekeeping    The site where the incinerator is built must:

1.    Have running water.
2.    Have a solid floor.
3.     Have lighting if 24hrs operation
4.    Have fly ash containerization and storage before disposal.

12    Health & Safety (Protective Gear)    1.    Staff handling waste must be well trained on safe handling of hazardous wastes
2.     Staff must be provided with appropriate  protective gear such as, gas mask, aprons, gumboots, helmets, gloves, goggles.

3.     Caution and Warning signs must be provided.
4.     Fire fighting equipment must be provided
5.     There should be no smoking or eating on the site.

The medical waste incineration industry was given birth to in the late 1980s by the confluence of two high profile media circuses: one – the HIV hysteria – and two – multiple media accounts of bags of syringes, needles, plasma bags, IV tubing, bottles of pills and even body parts washing up on the shores of some of the most popular resort beaches on the East Coast stretching from Maine to Florida. In 1987, in Indianapolis, Indiana, 12 children were found playing with HIV-infected vials of blood that came from an unsecured dumpster used by a medical clinic.

In a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease, the knee-jerk response was a widespread call to burn hospital waste so that the various avenues of incompetence, corruption and profiteering that led to dirty needles washing up on exclusive beaches could be closed down through a back door. Little thought was applied to the consequences of incineration, until plumes of black clouds began billowing from hospital complexes. Neighbors complained, air pollution research showed that those emissions were indeed dangerous and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) became involved.

Eventually the number of incinerators contracted dramatically, but in part because “centralized” incinerators became an easy solution. Hospitals washed their hands of the matter by allowing their waste to be burned in someone else’s backyard.

As a result, Stericycle, headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, became the king of the medical waste incineration industry, operating six large incinerators throughout the country, including one of the largest medical incinerators west of the Mississippi in the heart of the most heavily populated part of Utah, the North Salt Lake subdivision of Foxboro, a few miles from my house. Stericycle now receives the medical waste of eight surrounding states there.

The relationship between Stericycle and Foxboro has always been tense. Efforts to shutter Stericycle were launched as long as 10 years ago by a handful of citizens concerned about the toxic brew that billows out of Stericycle’s short smokestack. It’s no surprise that burning medical waste, just like burning fossil fuels or just about anything else, creates a pollution potpourri of hazardous chemicals and gases, heavy metals and particulate matter.

Indeed, citizens’ concerns are validated by hundreds of studies showing multiple adverse health outcomes among people exposed, including higher rates of cancers like childhood leukemia and adverse pregnancy outcomes that I have written about in a previous essay.

The repercussions of the toxic incinerator emissions are made even more disturbing when adding the realization that the medical waste incineration industry was born on a false premise – that hospital pathogens must be incinerated. An EPA report dating back 25 years cites numerous studies showing hospital waste presents no more risk of spreading infection than household waste – which harbors virtually all the same viruses and bacteria. In fact, according to the Society for Hospital Epidemiology of America, “Household waste contains more microorganisms with pathogenic potential for humans on average than medical waste.” So why single out medical waste? Scalpels and needles can be shredded without incineration.

Many of the toxic chemicals and heavy metals in hospital waste are not destroyed by incineration. In fact, burning medical waste is the worst possible way to manage it.

While merely landfilling is a less than perfect solution, the possibility of contamination of usable groundwater is theoretical, not a certainty. Whereas with incineration, the emissions enter the air shed we all breathe from, guaranteeing public exposure, especially for those closest to the incinerator. The ash left over from incineration may be a smaller volume than the original waste, but it is much more toxic, and eventually has to be landfilled anyway.

Incineration does not prevent disease; it actually spreads disease. Incineration not only does not remove toxins; it actually creates new ones and concentrates, mobilizes and redistributes existing ones. Emissions from incinerators are probably the most toxic type of air pollution there is, contaminated with the deadliest compounds known to science, designated by the EPA as “HAPs” (hazardous air pollutants), which includes dioxins, benzene, PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), furans, heavy metals and radioactive elements. Medical incinerators have even more deadly compounds not found in any other source, like residuals from chemotherapy drugs and even prions, the highly infective proteins that cause the 100 percent fatal human “Mad Cow” disease (which are much more common in human tissue than previously realized, and not reliably deactivated by incineration).

State health departments and environmental agencies are fond of claiming that toxicology assessments of the concentrations of many of these toxins are small enough to be written off as “safe.” The Utah State Health Department measured dioxin levels in the soil around Stericycle and declared the levels to be below any threshold of concern. If the devil is often in the details, in this case, the devil lies in the ignorance of the details.

Those toxicology assessments ignore the biologic complexity of the exposure. Many of these toxins are bioaccumulative, meaning they build up in the human body insidiously over time, and in even higher concentrations in certain critical organs and tissues.

Lipophilic (fat-like) toxins like dioxins highly concentrate in human breast milk. Nursing infants consume 10 to 20 times as much dioxin as the average adult. No toxicology assessments are ever based on the amount of dioxins in the human breast milk of people who live near incinerators, yet that undoubtedly is where dioxins wreak their greatest havoc on public health. Nor do those assessments consider the consequences of lipophilic toxins crossing the placenta that will primarily end up in the developing fetal brain because fat comprises about 60 percent of brain structural matter, and is the primary fat reservoir in the fetus.
Recently a new documentary was released that significantly raises the stakes in the long and sorry saga of this dying industry whose flagship corporate villain is Stericycle. The film features an undercover interview with an anonymous former Stericycle employee giving a credible, extraordinarily detailed account of fraudulent, illegal management practices far beyond what prompted the criminal investigation by state and federal law enforcement. The whistle-blower alleges shocking disregard for public and employee safety by Stericycle management – including directing employees to ignore the Geiger counter giving radioactive readings of the waste and to burn it anyway. Furthermore, he stated, the Geiger counter didn’t work much of the time.

While radioactivity is an inherent part of hospital waste, one of the few appropriate provisions in Stericycle’s permit is a prohibition of burning anything radioactive, and with good reason. No amount of radiation exposure is safe. Quoting from an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Mutagenic effects theoretically can result from a single molecular DNA alteration . . . every molecule of a carcinogen is presumed to pose a risk.”
In fact, the medical community is now much more cautious about the radioactive burden of many of our common diagnostic tools, like CAT scans, because of this growing recognition. Even low dose radiation exposure can damage chromosomes, alter gene expression and lead to cancer, brain diseases, immune disorders, birth defects and miscarriages – all of which North Salt Lake residents believe they have experienced in excess in their neighborhoods.

The ex-employee described management deliberately rigging the company scales and ignoring their permitted weight limit, a likely reason the state caught them exceeding their dioxin limit by 400 percent. Add to this the revelation that Erin Brockovich’s investigative team found dioxin concentrations in Foxboro homes to be inversely proportional to the distance from the incinerator. The home closest to Stericycle had 17 times the level of dioxins in its attic that would be considered average for an industrial area.
Incineration is widely recognized by international health organizations as an unnecessary, dangerous means of handling waste. Over 98 percent of medical incinerators have closed in the last 15 years – leaving a handful of communities like Foxboro to take most of the “hits for the team.” Utah’s governor, Gary Herbert, could close Stericycle on the basis of necessary public health protection, but he is loath to do so because he functions under the fog of the conservative mindset, that protection of business inherently has priority.

The whole medical incineration industry was a huge mistake right from the start, but Stericycle seems to have achieved immortality simply because someone is making money from it. The gnawing outrage of Stericycle is just a microcosm of the endemic failure of countless public policies held hostage to capitalism. Science, common sense, proportion, justice and human decency get thrown under the bus initially by fear and ignorance, and held there in perpetuity by ideology, exploitation and greed. We watch the same play over and over again with a different cast, be it gun control, the wealth gap, ISIS, our war addiction, GMO labeling, chemical and pesticide dysregulation, factory farming – and of course, the climate crisis. It makes me wonder whether we are not already living on the planet of the apes.

If you call 911 about a fever and vomiting in Allegheny County, don’t be surprised if the operator asks whether you recently traveled to West Africa.

Preparing for an Ebola case to be diagnosed in Pennsylvania is an orchestra of government departments, health care entities and private businesses, conducted by state and local public health departments, with guidance and manpower from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But dealing with the reality of an Ebola case can go very differently — missteps in Texas delayed treatment for Thomas E. Duncan, who died of the virulent disease last week.

Pennsylvania health officials are watching.

“I don’t think Texas changes on how we prepare for infectious disease outbreaks,” said Holli Senior, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health. “We will continue to watch, learn and adjust here in Pennsylvania as the situation evolves domestically and globally.”

The largest hospitals in Western Pennsylvania said they are prepared to treat patients with symptoms of the illness. Health giant UPMC trained special “SWAT” teams that will address Ebola cases. Allegheny County 911 operators could ask about travel before sending emergency responders to the houses of potential victims, county spokeswoman Amie Downs said.

Hazardous waste transporters who spoke with the Tribune-Review said that if a person falls ill at home, a private cleaning crew and transporter would be needed.

Contaminated materials likely would end up in an incinerator in Maryland because Pennsylvania has no incinerators for medical waste outside of hospitals, said David Henritz, owner of Bio-Haz Solutions in Lehighton in Carbon County.

It’s not clear what would happen if Maryland state officials or a company refused the medical waste.

Related: Stricter U.S. Ebola screenings to begin for travelers

“This is a complicated thing, and it’s not that anyone’s doing poor work. A lot of these players are organizations that haven’t worked together in the past,” said David Dausey, who leads preparedness drills as director of Mercyhurst University Institute of Public Health in Erie.

Many preparedness plans assume that someone would seek treatment at an urgent care clinic or emergency department.

“We’re making sure all the providers know what the checklists are. All those emergency rooms and hospitals should know what they should be doing,” said Dr. Karen Hacker, director of the Allegheny County Health Department.

Bill Smith, senior director of emergency preparedness at UPMC, said electronic medical records remind doctors and nurses to take precautions if a patient has symptoms and a travel history that suggest Ebola.

The patient would be isolated, though it could be in an exam room with a closed door and controlled access, Smith said.

“Our current thinking is that we don’t want to move anybody,” he said.

Hospitals within the Allegheny Health Network, including Allegheny General in the North Side and West Penn in Bloomfield, keep carts with special supplies ready to treat a patient with Ebola.

The carts contain items used in other functions in the hospital — face shields, goggles, extra gloves. Rather than paper gowns, there is a plastic, impermeable gown and plastic leggings. The goal is to make a liquid-proof barrier between patient and health care provider, said Dr. Robert Keenan, chief quality officer for the two hospitals.

Emergency preparedness involves steps fashioned to deal with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, avian flu or seasonal influenza, Keenan said.

Hacker said emergency providers should have appropriate safety gear if they arrive at a home with a possible Ebola case.

If someone goes to the hospital, his or her home may need to be cleaned and decontaminated. This requires a cleaning crew and the ability to transport hazardous biological waste on the highway.

“You’d pretty much have to destroy anything that person came in contact with,” said Bill Krulac, an emergency response expert with the hazardous waste management company McCutcheon Enterprises in Apollo.

Krulac said the company carries protective clothing and respirators and would remove anything in the house that came in contact with a patient’s bodily fluids. This could be sheets, a mattress and even clothes. Everything would be dunked in bleach and other cleaners and loaded onto a truck to go to an incinerator. The virus is heat-sensitive.

Staff at UPMC have been trained in intricacies such as the appropriate way to take off a hazmat suit, which starts with one ungloved hand slipping inside the suit at the shoulder and rolling it down to avoid touching the outside.

If someone dies, the body is double-wrapped in impermeable bags and taken to a crematorium, following federal guidelines, Keenan said. But the corpse of an Ebola patient is infectious, and it’s unclear what would happen if cremation companies refused.

Such weak links break an emergency response chain, said Dausey at Mercyhurst.

“If you come out and say, ‘Yeah, we were completely prepared,’ and something goes wrong, people think you lied,” he said. “If we’re prepared for the Ebola today, that’s great, but what about the Ebola of tomorrow?”

the entire carcass of animals ( cattle , horses ,
Sheep, pigs , etc.) , as well as biologically hazardous waste
Products in the fuel stove .
? Opening Doors – the closure and fixation automated system ,
Which are managed remotely by the operator .
? designed to work in long mode and fast
Action ( Quick Start EP – i)
? Fully mobile – mounted on wheeled chassis
Even during the operation . Incinerators must be provided
As standard equipment a special truck

air retention for at least 2 seconds at a temperature of less than 850C, the combustion
In order to achieve the proper effect.
? must be a two-chamber incinerators, primary and secondary
Fuel stoves
? The waste products to reduce the initial volume
Possible to minimize (approximately 5% sterile ash
Form).

Incinerators should be provided in the fuel tank (diesel )
? The minimum capacity of the animal carcass incinerator
The destruction of 1000 kg / hour. Incinerator capacity is calculated
8MJ/kg- material and 60 % humidity.
? It must be possible to use the incinerator +40
C to – 15 0C laboratory incinerator
Temperature and 5% – 95% – of moisture conditions.
? PLC controller and a built-in temperature panelita complete
Automatic control, a control computer, which is stored
Information on the variation of temperature with respect to time and
Graphic images.
? must have fuel with automatic control and malfunction
Detection system.
?the ability to pre- warm-up , body waste burning on and off
Consistency is independent of the first and secondary chambers.
? ensuring the incinerator with electricity , it
Must be installed on the generator.
? clean the incinerator should be simple tools ,
Without using any additional equipment

Waste Management is a critical issue that needs to be urgently addressed in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to ensure the protection of residents and visitors alike, and to preserve the beautiful and diverse natural environment found here.

Green VI, a local not-for-profit organization, is working towards a greener, cleaner, and healthier BVI. Their projects focus around the themes of waste, energy, water and education.

Green VI has initiated the following projects around the waste theme namely:
• A glass studio as a demonstration project to prove that waste can become a resource
• Working with partners to initiate a voluntary plastic bag ban
• Working with the BVI government and local recyclers to create a viable recycling system
• Establish pilot composting projects
• A trash to treasure program for schools
• Continuous education and awareness

Glass Studio

Glass waste is problematic in the BVI; it is estimated that 3.8 million bottles were imported into Tortola in 1996, resulting in the 1700 tons of glass received at the incinerator. Each year, the incinerator is shut down for approximately twenty days during which time the Department of Waste Staff manually chip off glass which has melted onto the incinerator walls. For the duration of time that the incinerator is shut down, incoming waste is stored or burned, resulting in further health hazards such as toxic smoke, flies, and vermin.

Although not designed to deal with all of Tortola’s glass waste, Green VI’s Glass Studio demonstrates the usefulness of old bottles. Between 200 – 400lb of glass waste collected at the restaurants in Cane Garden Bay, is melted each week in the furnace. Green VI’s team of glassblowers turns the melted glass into decorative bowls, glasses, ornaments and souvenirs. Profits from the Glass Studio will go toward supporting other environmental initiatives in the BVI.

Currently, Green VI is working on converting part of their studio equipment to run off used vegetable oil, which not only reduces vegetable oil waste and operating costs, but also produces less greenhouse gas emissions. Green VI also turns crushed bottles into sea glass by tumbling it in a concrete mixer, which makes great landscaping material. All the packaging used at the studio is made from re-purposed packaging. Old t-shirts and boxes destined for the incinerator are used as packaging material.

In addition to demonstrating waste as a resource, Green VI’s Glass Studio is instrumental as an education and awareness tool. Local apprentices are being trained in the ancient art of glass blowing. The Studio has welcomed students from all the schools in the BVI to watch “trash to treasure” in action.

Ban the plastic shopping bag

Another major concern in the Territory is plastic waste; plastic bags make up the highest percentage of litter found in the BVI, they contribute to the blocking of drains and increasing the risk of flooding, and kill marine life through strangulation and ingestion. Plastics take 1000 years to photodegrade. They break down into smaller fragments which soak up toxins. These tiny particles of plastic do not have the ability to biodegrade and contaminate soil, water and living organisms forever.

This is why Worldhouse Caribbean and Green VI, in partnership with the major retailers in the BVI, felt it necessary to initiate a voluntary plastic bag ban in the BVI. Because all the major grocery stores in the territory have signed on to this proposal of their own accord, as opposed to the government enforcing the ban through legislation, the BVI is the first British Territory in the world to voluntarily ban the plastic bag.

Plastic bags, in the ocean, look a lot like jellyfish, which are a main food source to many marine animals. Plastic bags, once ingested, create blockages within the digestive system which eventually leads to death. Bringing a reusable bag with you when grocery shopping and avoiding the new 15 cent per bag charge decreases the amount of plastic bags being littered which, in turn, decreases the amount of plastic bags in the ocean.

Trash to Treasure

Green VI, in partnership with the BVI Tourist Board, the Conservation and Fisheries Department and the Youth Empowerment Project are facilitating a school trash to treasure program to encourage the youth to see and understand the value of the materials they have around them. Participants are encouraged to enter a trash to treasure contest and winner’s art will be displayed at the Earth Day Festival in Cane Garden Bay on the 20th April 2013.

Recycling

Waste management is such a pressing issue in the BVI for many reasons; one main reason being that islands face space constraints to landfill. Green VI is currently working with the Government of the BVI and local recyclers to implement a viable recycling system for the Territory. Pilot composting projects, in partnership with the USVI Recycling Partnership, are being implemented.

Education and Awareness

Alongside other organizations in the BVI, Green VI is working towards educating the public about sustainability issues including waste and materials management. Green VI was awarded UNESCO funding in 2012 and 35 participants were trained on what sustainability is and how it can be implemented in their own organizations and collectively move toward a greener, cleaner and healthier BVI.