Infrastructure Minister Phil Gawne MHK will ask Tynwald to support capital funding of £330,000 at this month’s sitting of Tynwald.

The proposed Hazardous Waste Transfer Facility would be built on a site near to the incinerator at Middle Park off Richmond Hill in Braddan.

The facility would provide a central point for the collection and safe storage of up to 2,000 tonnes of hazardous wastes. The operating costs would be met by the waste producers.

Mr Gawne said: ‘The need for this facility is one of the consequences of having such a diverse and successful economy.

‘The Isle of Man is home to thriving aerospace and precision engineering sectors that produce a certain amount of hazardous wastes. The Hazardous Waste Transfer Facility is a key development that will support future economic growth and also minimise any potential impact on people’s health or the environment.’

As well as waste generated by the manufacturing industry, the facility would also deal with smaller amounts of hazardous waste produced by laboratories and Noble’s Hospital, and unidentified materials washed up on local beaches.

Because of their nature or chemistry, these wastes cannot be safely managed through the incinerator (or Energy from Waste plant) or landfill sites and are shipped off-island for specialist treatment and disposal.

In addition to packaging, transport and disposal costs, waste producers have to pay for special permits to ship the waste under EU regulations.

It can take several months to accumulate an economically-viable load for export, so the waste has to be stored during the intervening period.

The Isle of Man currently does not have a central transfer facility and most hazardous waste is stored on the site of production.

While this is not unsafe, in the longer term it is not considered best practice.

Planning permission is already in place for the Hazardous Waste Transfer Facility, which has been designed in conjunction with the Manufacturing and Technical Industry Waste Sustainability Committee, the Fire and Rescue Service and the Health and Safety at Work Inspectorate.

Hazardous wastes will be collected by the site operator or delivered to the facility by specialist companies and then held in designated storage bays before being packaged for onwards shipment.

Mr Gawne said: ‘The proposed facility will serve the Isle of Man for at least the next 20 years and is part of the department’s commitment to providing the infrastructure on which to build economic success.

‘It will ensure that the Isle of Man, and in particular the manufacturing sector, can continue to manage its hazardous wastes economically and in accordance with its regulatory obligations.’

The Department of Infrastructure said the Hazardous Waste Transfer Facility would be built by an Isle of Man contractor and the operators appointed following a competitive tender process.

It is estimated that the facility would be operational by March 2015.

Veolia Environmental Services off Texas 73 will receive and begin destroying a shipment of medical waste from deceased Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan’s apartment within the next eight to 10 hours, Mitch Osborne, Veolia Gulf Coast Branch Environmental Services general manager, said Thursday morning.

“The containers will contain disinfected waste from the apartment the patient was residing in,” Osborne said. “It’s something we can manage, and we know it’s going to draw a lot of attention because of the ‘E’ word. But we’re not bringing Ebola to Southeast Texas. We’re bringing waste products that have been packaged for our workers’ and our community’s safety.”

Osborne said the waste — strictly from the patient’s apartment, not from the hospital — was pre-treated, pre-cleaned and disinfected before it was placed into containers. Those containers were then placed inside 55-gallon drums that will be incinerated along with its cargo.

Port Arthur Mayor Deloris “Bobbie” Prince said the city does not have the authority to decide whether the waste may enter the city, or the surrounding areas, or not.

“We don’t have the authority to stop it,” she said. “Veolia is not in Port Arthur — it’s in an unincorporated area of Jefferson County.

“I wish that none of it would come this way, but since it is coming our direction, it’s comforting to know that the safety of the employees and the citizens has been considered throughout the whole process.

“There will be no emissions, no fumes coming from the incinerator. They have the equipment and the facilities to handle this safely, and Mitch has assured me it poses no risk to our citizens or to his employees.”

Osborne said Veolia was contacted by the Department of State Health Services about managing the disposal because of the capabilities of its on-site incinerator.

“We supplied them with packaging specifications so that we can feed it directly into our incinerator,” he said. “It will be disposed 12 to 18 hours after arrival.

The Southern Illinois company that makes medical waste incinerators is now rushing an order to West Africa to help stop the Ebola virus from spreading.

We first reported on the ‘Medi-Burn’ in August when Carmi-based Elastec started offering its services to the United Nations.

Since then, the U.S. military has increased its response to the Ebola outbreak.

We’re told three Medi-Burn incinerators are being delivered to Texas overnight, and will then be transported to Sierra Leone.

The Medi-Burn is fueled by diesel and is self-contained – which means contaminated medical waste can be burned on-site.

PORT ARTHUR, Texas (AP) — A Texas incinerator has destroyed drums loaded with items believed to have been contaminated by a man with Ebola.

Veolia North America says the drums taken from a Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan became ill were destroyed Friday at the company’s incinerator in Port Arthur. Veolia says its incineration process destroyed viruses and pathogens with temperatures ranging from 1,500 to 2,100 degrees.

A crew of 15 people spent four days at the apartment where Duncan had been staying when he developed Ebola-related symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea. They wore protective suits with gas masks while filling about 140 barrels with mattresses, Duncan’s sheets and carpet from the entire apartment.

Duncan, who carried the virus with him from his home in Liberia, died Wednesday at a Dallas hospital.

The ash of belongings of Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who died from the Ebola virus in Texas, may not be headed for a hazardous waste landfill in Carlyss after all.

Chemical Waste Management on Monday said it has “no current plans” to accept incinerator ash from Veolia Environmental in Port Arthur, Texas. Veolia incinerated some of the decontaminated belongings from Thomas Eric Duncan’s apartment located in Dallas.
“After additional review, Chemical Waste Management, has notified the Veolia Environmental that it has no current plans to accept ash,” the company said in a news release. “While (our) facility is permitted by the state and federal government to accept waste of this type, and while accepting this waste poses no threat to the environment or human health, we do not want to make an already complicated situation, more complicated.”

The items incinerated included linen, bedding, and carpet were taken from the apartment where Duncan became ill.

On Sunday, Chemical Waste Management confirmed that it would received the ash and state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell said he would file a temporary restraining order to block the move.

No world yet on what will be done with the ash now.