Waste disposal strategy
Generating revenue from X-ray waste
According to Betts Envirometal, experts in precious metal recovery from waste streams, and a provider of ‘total waste management’ solutions, ‘disposing of hospital wastes isn’t usually a glamorous subject, unless, of course, you know how to make money from it’. As general manager, Simon Hundal, explains, the company is seeking to ‘revolutionise’ how the NHS treats certain waste streams, and, in doing so, to encourage NHS Trust directors and governance managers to check their compliance with patient data retention guidelines as far as medical X-ray film, in particular, is concerned.
Destroying X-ray film compulsory
Patient confidentialitymakes it necessary to dispose of X-rays through a competent, certified contractor. The vastmajority of adult X-rays should, according to NHS retention legislation, be destroyed after a period of eight years (the exceptions being paediatric and cancer-related X-rays, which are retained for 21 years). Once a Trust keeps X-rays beyond this period, they are in breach of the law.
legal retention period. Disposal can be expensive – traditionally such wastes would be shredded and buried, or burned. However, by recovering the silver from used X-rays through a fully audited and controlled service, most hospital Trusts could be making money, and some are doing so already. Many NHS Trusts are not familiar with
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the process or requirements for handling confidential data such as medical X-ray film or personal medical records, whereas others lack the resources to identify and gather files for destruction in accordance with the legislation. To compound the issue, in the majority of cases X-ray film is held by off-site storage contractors, which may charge prohibitive ‘exit fees’ for the release of such items.
HS storage facilities are likely to contain large volumes of medical X- ray film which have passed the
Exported to China or India Of those Trusts that do ensure that X-rays are disposed of, many are employing contractors that use third parties to simply export the waste to China and India for recycling. They are thus not only lacking a full audit trail for these materials – which may contain sensitive data such as names and dates of birth – but, equally, the value of the precious metals contained in the X-rays is simply being lost. The UK is running precariously low on precious raw resources, which surely makes paying to export these materials senseless, or, at the very least, naïve? The good news is that UK-based
recovery of silver from X-rays could be used not only to pay for the disposal service, but actually to generate revenue for the Trust, which in turn can be used to offset staff costs or storage company exit fees. Recovering the precious metals isn’t
an overly technical process – for example with medical X-ray film, the film is destroyed, allowing the recovery of the silver and residual plastic. The plastic we recover at Betts, for example, is sold on to the food tray packaging manufacturing industry, and the silver melted down into bullion bars. This means that the client has a waste stream that has been collected and destroyed in the correct manner, with 100% recycling. The biggest benefit, however, is that, as with some other specialist metal recovery companies, Betts actually pays for the precious metal recovered.
A £15,000 rebate For example, one hospital received a £15,000 rebate from 40 tonnes of X-ray film which would otherwise have been left in deep storage, shredded, buried, or incinerated. None of the alternatives are
Health Estate Journal September 2013
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