When Hospital Waste Becomes Money: The Medical Waste Business in the 1990s (1994)

When Hospital Waste Becomes Money: The Medical Waste Business in the 1990s (1994)

In the early 1990s, amid the chaos of the bursting bubble economy, medical waste disposal attracted attention as a new market: guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1989 and revisions to the Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law in 1992 classified injection needles, bloody gauze, and other items as "infectious waste" and industrial waste subject to special controls, making the disposal of medical waste that had been The treatment of medical waste, which had been treated inexpensively, quickly became expensive.

Entrants to this market ranged from real estate, cabs, civil engineering, and many other industries. In 1994, more than 1,500 companies were licensed to dispose of infectious waste, of which only 10% were conventional companies.

However, behind the market expansion, problems have also become more serious. Due to intensified competition, the cost of treatment varied widely, from 50 to 1,000 yen per kilogram, and dumping was rampant. Some companies selling inexpensive treatment continued to use the same sloppy treatment methods as before the law was revised, reigniting concerns about the risk of infection and illegal dumping.

The new market was a success as a "business," but "safety" and "ethics" were not always ensured. If profit takes precedence while the institutional framework is incomplete, it will instead undermine the trust of healthcare and society. The era in which hospital waste became money had begun, but who would pay the price?