We include among our clients public and private facilities, which carry out medical and veterinary prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and research activities. We transport and ship to disposal non-hazardous medical waste, non-infectious hazardous medical waste and infectious hazardous medical waste.
We also provide our customers with containers approved by law and suitable for transport under the ADR regime in addition to advice on waste management both from an administrative and technical point of view.
We operate under the provisions of current legislation, which specifically is Presidential Decree 254/03, a regulation governing the management of medical waste, establishing that these must be managed in such a way as to guarantee high levels of protection of the environment and public health and dividing them as follows:
- Non-hazardous medical waste
- Medical waste assimilated into urban waste
- Non-infectious hazardous medical waste
- Hazardous medical waste at infectious risk
- Wastes from exhumation and exmulation
- Waste from other cemetery activities
- Special waste, produced outside health facilities, which as a risk are similar to hazardous waste at infectious risk
The text of the law also focuses on the characteristics and maximum duration of the temporary storage, preliminary storage, collection and transport of hazardous medical waste at infectious risk; an extract is given below:
““To ensure the protection of health and the environment, temporary storage, handling inside the health facility, preliminary storage, collection and transport of hazardous healthcare waste at infectious risk must be carried out using special disposable packaging, including flexible packaging, bearing the words “Hazardous healthcare waste at infectious risk ” and the symbol of the biological risk or, in the case of sharp or pungent waste, special rigid packaging to be lost, resistant to puncture, bearing the words “Hazardous healthcare waste at infectious risk sharp and pungent”, both contained in the second external rigid packaging, possibly reusable after suitable disinfection at each cycle of use, bearing the words “Hazardous healthcare waste at infectious risk”.
The outer packaging must have suitable characteristics to withstand the impacts and stresses caused during their handling and transport and must be made in a suitable colour to distinguish them from the packaging used for the delivery of other waste.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned provisions:
- (a) the temporary storage of hazardous medical waste at infectious risk must be carried out in such a way as not to cause any health hazard and may last for a maximum of five days from the time of closure of the container. In compliance with hygiene and safety requirements and under the responsibility of the producer, this period shall be extended to 30 days for quantities under 200 litres. Registration in the loading and unloading register must take place within five days;
- operations for the preliminary storage, collection and transport of infectious hazardous medical waste shall remain subject to the general hazardous waste regime;
- for hazardous waste at infectious risk destined for incineration plants, the entire transport phase must be carried out as soon as technically possible;
- the period of prior filing shall not normally exceed five days. The maximum duration of the preliminary deposit is, however, set in the authorisation provision, which may also provide for the use of refrigeration systems”
