One Waste Company in State Certified to Handle Ebola Waste

The Arkansas Health Department is in the process of devising its own guidelines on the procedure of handling patients infected with the Ebola virus. 

Pending approval of the director, the ADH plan should be ready in a couple of weeks, said Carrie Poston, epidemiologist.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and U.S. Department of Transportation have provided guidelines for Ebola waste, which include limiting its transport to a handful of companies.

Because infected materials are classified as Category A infectious substances, the DOT has granted only a handful of permits for companies who can handle the waste, as the packaging and labeling of the materials are more stringent than usual.

While there are a number of medical waste disposal companies in Arkansas — IBISWorld reports it’s a $5 billion industry and growing, with the U.S. expected to generate 5.9 million tons this year — most firms in the state do not have the necessary permit to handle Ebola-related waste.

Stericycle, one of five waste management companies nationwide granted the special permit, has one office in Arkansas, in Benton. 

The other option for Ebola waste is if the hospital had an autoclave with the capacity to segregate and inactivate the waste on-site, said ADH epidemiologist Lori Simmons.

The health department is unsure how many hospitals in the area have the appropriate autoclaves, but Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s Public Health Committee, told Newsweek in October that most U.S. hospitals do not have the capacity for the amount of linens and other waste associated with Ebola patients.

Simmons said the chances of an Ebola case walking into an Arkansas hospital are slim at this point, given the precautions being taken by the DOT.

Only a handful of suspected Ebola reports have made their way to the health department, and each patient proved to show no risk of Ebola, Simmons said.