Autumn of the Medical Waste Bubble--A Record of 1994

Autumn of the Medical Waste Bubble--A Record of 1994

In the fall of 1994, the flames of incinerators were not only burning garbage, they were also scorching people's desires. Needles and bloodstained gauze, once disposed of quietly in the back of hospitals, suddenly became a money-making tree when they were legislated as "infectious waste" in 1992. The unit cost of disposal was more than ten times higher than before. Although the law was revised in response to the accidental stabbing of a janitor and illegal dumping of gauze, it was not only waste specialists who flooded into the area. Other industries, such as real estate, cabs, civil engineering, and even bedding sales, entered the market in droves, expanding the market as if it were generating a fever.

It's a new market," said Noboru Watanabe, chairman of the Medical Waste Subcommittee of the National Federation of Industrial Waste Management Associations. At the same time, however, he is concerned about the price destruction and deterioration of treatment quality caused by the proliferation of waste disposal companies. The cheapest companies have no choice but to use the same disposal methods as before," he said. While cutting-edge technologies have been introduced, such as the bar code tracking system developed by NEC and Fujitsu, the container collection system by Itochu and Watakyu Bedding, and the Nippon Steel Group's incinerator, sloppy incineration practices continue to exist behind the scenes.

There are more than 1,500 licensed treatment companies, 90% of which are newcomers with no experience. The supposedly safe system of regulation has, on the contrary, created a gap of lawlessness, attracting those who are lurking in the darkness. The smoke from the incinerator did not promise a clean future, but rather pushed the contradictions created by the system and the market skyward.