Hopefully this is the last time I ever see this happen:
What the hell is going on here? I’m riding around in Fishtown and I find this pile casually sitting on the side of the road. People are walking by, taking a good 20 extra feet going around it. Not me. Coming from an infectious waste cleanup background, I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was to find this, now matter how unreal and ignorant.
With the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection code firmly ingrained in my head, I started formulating some questions…what regulation is this scenario satisfying?
Protection from rodents and animals? No. Placed in a leak proof container impervious to moisture? Nope. How about secure from the public? Bags tied off properly? Waste labeled in any way whatsoever? Hell to the no.
Peeking in the bags, they contained nothing but cardboard. Take a look:
That’s right: I don’t see any blood in quantities greater than 20 cc’s (haha), or even a lazily disposed syringe (which don’t belong in there either). This is cardboard, folks. Infectious toothbrush holders? I want to know who is going to pick this up. The City’s garbagemen wouldn’t want to touch this stuff, nor get in trouble for trying to dump this at a waste transfer station.
If this is actually to be disposed as infectious, it’s breaking every rule in the book…so whatever waste vendor is taking this, needs to have their license revoked (if they have one to begin with). Maybe I’m all wrong. I can’t think of a possible situation voiding this building of being completely negligent.
Well, infectious waste bags are extremely rigid to deal with large quantities of liquid waste…I guess it’s nice to have them on hand for when you’re dealing with… INFECTIOUS WASTE. Not empty cardboard boxes. How did you people even obtain these to begin with?
Yes, it’s only trash in a garbage bag that’s colored red and has biohazard symbols on it, I get it. Tyler, stop freaking out. Well, no. If you ever see this in your neighborhood, please contact your appropriate city office, or your state environmental office. While it’s “just” a bag, it’s not just a bag.
I called the DEP about the incident, this should be interesting. Even if for some reason this company is okay with their disposal habit (which they aren’t), I don’t mind being the nosey annoying dude here. Either way, it’s highly entertaining to me and I can’t wait to see how this unfolds. Maybe the company reads my page regularly and I’ll get my ass kicked. Whatever.
UPDATE: DEP says that the company had red bags around and decided to use them as trash bags…is that really all there is to it? Isn’t this odd? If a hospital casually disposed of red bags containing innocent garbage (or recyclables, in this case), they’d get a phone call and receive a huge fine… just sayin’.