Publikationsdatenbank

Die Vermeidung und Verwertung fester und flüssiger Abfälle sowie die Entsorgung dieser Abfälle, der Abwässer und der Abluft aus Tierversuchsanlagen (1995)

Art

Hochschulschrift

Autor

Lang, Ralf

Quelle

Berlin, 1995 — 167 Seiten

Kontakt

Institut für Tierschutz und Tierverhalten

Königsweg 67
Gebäude 21, 1. OG
14163 Berlin
+49 30 838 62901
tierschutz@vetmed.fu-berlin.de

Abstract / Zusammenfassung

The avoidance and utilization of solid and liquid wastes as well as the diposal of these wastes, the waste waters and the return aair from animal testing plants and central animal laboratories is one of the most deceive aspects of an ecological management Due to the growing environmental awarenessof the citizens and the -resulting - inten- sification of the legal rules and regulations inclusive of financial consequences, such type of management will gain more and more importance The knowledge of the legal requirements for the waste disposal is the basis of an evaluation of the present disposal practice of the facilites and institutions referred to and of planned improvements in this field Thereforte these are described at the outset and relevant activites to be expected by the legislator in the future will be included. The representation of the results of an examination carried out at six institutes of the aforementioned type is intended o show the disposal modalities made use of there. The discussion of these results with the recommendations of the relevant literature for institutions of the health service, animal testing plants and from the field of the hospital hygiene, represented in the next section shows that there indeed still exists a potential for the avoidance and utilization in some partial areas at the institutes interviewed. At the same time, there can be made clear the handling in the waste classification sector and in the treatment and processing of the wastes, waste waters and return air being different from institute to institute Independently of the respective domestic, communal and municipal conditions as well as of the readiness For cooperation of the competent authorities, manufactures,suppliers and disposal agencies, it is to be judged seperately for each institute to which extent the need for actions, thus determined, can be converted to concrete measures. Establishing a waste management concept for one s own institute is recommended as a basis for this judgement and an intimization and description of staging points is given for potential measures in this field None of the institutis interviewed had a waste management concept indicating the quantities of the various types of waste involved at the animal - experimental facilities and their disposal outes as well as the possibilities for avoiding and utilizing these wastes. Even if there may exist a waste management concept for the entire university or group of institutes. A control of the quantity and disposal routes of the wastes exspecially involved at the own institute can only be recommended, because a comprehensive representation of the avoidance and utilization possibilities of the wastes will solely become feasible on this basis. At the same time, a responsible staff member should be appointed having knowledge of the disposal routes and acting as a contact partner of the waste commissioner of the university and, perhaps, of the outside disposal agencies on the one hand and for questions of the further staff members on the other hand. This responsible member shall relieve the manager of the animal experimental facilities and advise him with regard to decisive questions. The different extents of the collection of valuable substances found during the examination partially express the locally different utilization possibilities and conditions for collecting such valuable substances. But particularly in this field, the spectrum offered has increased in recent time, so that the disposal practice may perhaps be adapted to new conditions. This situation is aggravated by the fact that a separate collection of the various valuable substances will require additional work stages and that appropriate containers will have to be provided. Important for the introduction of an ongoing collection of valuable substances is a comprehensive and motivating information of the fellow workers participating in the collection of separated substances. The assignment of hospital - specific waste to the groups B and C ( B - wastes for the disposal of which particular requirements are to be placed only within the health - service structure for hygienic reasons; C - wastes for the disposal of which particular requirements are to be placed inside and outside the health - service structure for hygienic reasons, so - called infectious or infection - threatening wastes ) shows distinct differences among the institutes interviewed. Thus, for example, more wastes are disposed of in a hygienically expensive ( and costly ) manner at some institutes than required by the legal principles and the applicable literature. Accordingly, wastes are only required to be assigned to group C if they are or may be contaminated by pathogens or causative organisms of the following infectious deseases: brucellosis, cholera, diphteritis, Jacob - Creutzfeld desease, leprosy, foot - and - mouth desease, virus - related meningitides, anthrax, paratyphoid A, B and C, epidemic smallpox, poliomyelitis, Q - fever, glanders, rabies, tuberculosis, tularemia, typhus, virus - related hemorrhage fever and varicella. Microbiological cultures from corresponding laboratories are likewise principally to be assigned to group C, even if there are involved causative organisms of deseases not referred to above. In the case of the occurrence of certain animal epidemics, too, a harmless elimination of wastes can be called for due to an order of the competent authority or to the rules and regulations issued on the basis of the law related to animal or livestock epidemics. Wastes other than indicated are not subject to the requirements if they are placed for waste group C. Accordingly, such wastes are not involved in some areas such as, for example, in operating and consulting rooms where no animals are treated suffering from corresponding deseases. It should therefore be checked if the special waste volume can be reduced by consistently assigning to group C only those wastes referred to. Two of the five animal-experimental institutes where wastes of group C are involved according to their own statements, autoclave them theirselves or have them autoclaved by the university-owned disposal center in order to add the wastes, treated in this manner, to the trade waste being similar to the domestic waste. Two further institutes have this type of wastes treated by outside waste disposal contractors in steam disinfection systems, with the mobile system of the contractor locally treating the waste in one case and disposing of the disinfected wastes jointly with the domestic waste. The fifth institute has such wastes hauled away by a forwarding agent and sent to special-waste incineration plant. A treatment of the C-wastes in institute- or university-owned autoclaves is the least expensive and perhaps the ecologically most reasonable disposal practice, because a special-waste incineration will then not be required and there will e eliminated transport ways as well as packaging in transportation containers (corresponding to the rules and regulations for dangerous goods). Waste treatment must take place in accordance with the "list of the disinfection agents and methods checked and recognized or approved of by the FederalMinistry of Health". A sterilization will not be required. A disinfection with saturated steam at 105ø C for a minimum time of five minutes is regarded as beeing hygienically sufficient. An institute, working with substances beeing harmful for the environment has such contaminated wastes hauled away by an outside waste disposal contractor and eliminated by a special-waste incineration plant. The determined consumption of selected medical one-way articles shows that there is still a potential of avoidance in this sector whose extent is to be judged by each institute itself (by aking into consideration the hygienic requirements as well as, possibly, the increased work load of the personnel and the investments to be made in part). The consumption of large quantities of one-trip overshoes may be referred to here as an example. Upon checking the hygienic need of using large quantities of one-trip overshoes, substitution of the one- trip overshoes by disinfectable overshoes of rubber material should be considered in such areas where the use of overshoes cannot be abstained from. Disinfectable or sterizable multiway alternatives are available on the market also for other medical one-way articles; respective examples are referred to in the present dissertation. Even recycling of one-way articles is referred to in the literature. As the waste avoidance requirement is not only to be understood on a quantitative but also on a qualitative basis, the content of harmful substances in the waste should be as low as possible. In the sector of one-way medical articles, PVC is of especial importance. Particularly, one-trip overshoes and one-way gloves frequently contain PVC, but also infusion tubes and similar products. Thus, for example, the PVC percentage in the waste can be reduced by the (cost-neutral) replacement of PVC-containing one-way gloves against latex gloves. There are described the collection, transportation and storage of the domestic waste, the B- and C-wastes at the institutes interviewed. They correspond to the legal specifications as well as to the recommendations of the corresponding literature. The same applies to these aspects of disposal related to the other wastes involved there. The wastes for the disposal of which particular requirements are placed inside and outside of the institutions of the health service (wastes ofgroup C) are deposed of inside and outside the inshtutons of the health service by outside waste disposal contractors at at institutes interviewed Only at one of the animal-experimental institutes used developer and Fixing bath liquids were routed to the waste water at the time of the interview - the latter liquid iquid an in-house desilverizing process. Due to the increased requirements the the waste water quality this disposal practice, however will be changed such that an outside waste disposal contractor will haul away these wastes, too. The legal requirements for the disposal of wastes of group D such as, For exemple laboratory wastes and chemical residues wastes from the X-ray laboratory mercury-containing wastes and the like, make it imperative to employ an outside disposal contractor if the waste producer himself cannot organize the disposal of dangerous substances- transportation and elimination by means of a cemical physical treatment or an incineration of the special wastes in accordance with the numerous legal rules and regulation As the latter is hardly feasible there only remains the possibility of disposal via a specicialized outside waste disposal contractor as selected by all insitutes interviewed which which guarantee a harmless removal and elimination The same applies to the deposal of radioactive wastes with a prolonged half-life period involved at only one of the institutes at the time of the inteview. In spite of this, there has also been represented the disposal at two further insitutes where such wastes were involved formerly In all three cases, the disposal of the radioactive wastes was organized by the competent authorizy of the entire university or college which, in one case, also assumed the transport of dangerous substances for a final elimination at the nuclear research plant in J?lich. The two other insitutes have the disposal of these wastes carried out by a private enterprise. Short-lived radioactive wastes (with half-live periods of less than 100 days) were subjected to an intermediate storage in all three cases until the radioactivity dropped down to below to the values specified by the radiation protection regulation for such university wastes so that they had not to be disposed of as radioactive wastes. To the extent as they are not deposed of as radioactive, loaded-withdangenus-substances or partially infections special wastes, animal carcasses are directed to a dead-animal ody processing plant for exploitation which simultaneously guarantees a harmless elimination. This is certainly the most reasonable type of disposal from the overall economical and ecological point of view. As this kind of utilizing the animal carcasses also safely kills pathogens, the possibility should be checked whether a reduction of special wastes by a utilization of the animal carcasses in he aforementioned way would not be better for and at the respective institutes where infectious animal carcasses are added to such special wastes. Litter and faeces, being neither infectious nor loaded with harmful substances, are disposed of jointly with the domestic waste by five of the six institutes interviewed. When they come to the domestic-waste incineration plant, they undergo an energetic utilization. However, the material utilization and processing should have priority if there exists a possibility for such a utilization and if no financial dis-advantages will arise. The material utilization of these wastes is realized by composting them or spreading them over and working into the soil. Both possibilities are made use of by one of the institutes interviewed, as the litter and excrements of the large-animal keeping are composted by the university-owned gardening and landscaping department and corresponding wastes of the small-animal keeping brought out by an appointed farmer, a practice whose realizability should also at least be checked at other institutes in the event of problems with the present kind of disposal. Infectious litter and faeces are to be disinfected on a hermal or chemical basis before they can be added to the noninfectious wastes of this kind. The thermal disinfection should particularly be preferred when composting them or spreading them over and working into the soil, as the chemical disinfection may damage the growth of plants. If a disinfection cannot or shall not be performed by a waste producer, the only remaining possibility will be the disposal of these wastes in form of C-wastes via an outside waste disposal contractor in the same way as it is handled at one of the intitutes having been examined. The litter loaded with harmful environmental substances and involved at one of the institutes interviewed is disposed of by an outside waste disposal contractor like the other wastes loaded in such a way The division of the waste water into various categories and the treatment of the individual waste water categories before directing them into the sewers are not uniformly handled by the institutes interviewed. Three animal testing institutes distinguishes infectious waste water and to-be-neutraized waste water from domestic water, i.e. water as it is usual with households. One of these institutes additioally distinguishes the waste water of isotope laboratories. The fourth animal-experimental institute distinguishes infectious waste waters, waste waters from animal keeping and the domestic waste water as it is usual with households, whereas a fifth institute distinguishes the waste waters of the animal-keeping areas from those of the isotope laboratory and from the domestic waste water. Finally the remaining animal teasing institute uniformly handles all waste waters involved. Five of the six animal-experimental institutes possibly heat infectious waste waters of certain functional areas (quarantine department, infectious department, control laboratories) or of the entire house in the case of the institue which does not practise a subdivision of the various waste waters. Heating takes place in three of the five cases only if it is necessary, i.e. at the presence of causative organisms of infectious deceases which can be transmitted by wasre waters The possibly infectious waste waters of two other institutes are principally heated Four institutes perform a neutralization of the waste waters from experimental laboratories and animal-keeping areas by means of an automatically operating neutralisation plant. As regards waste waters of the isotope laboratories with a radioavitivity exceeding the limit values, two institutes subject these waste waters to an intermediate storage in a collecting and deactivating tank or basin. Two of the institutes interviewed treat waste waters from the animalkeeping areas with tearing pumps, while one institute has all the waste water of the house mechanically clarified and even filtered Concerning domestic waste waters to the extent as they are separated from the aforementional categories, the animal testing institutes do not perform a pretreatment The waste waters from animal-experimental facilities can be compared with the municipal waste water as to their epidemic-hygienic condition because the decease carriers largely live in the joint household or domestic community so that the major portion of the pathogens h the waste water comes from the domestic sphere. Thus, heating the waste waters, involved at the animal testing facilities, in a way as it is already practised at three of the institutes interviewed, is necessary only at the occurrence of infectious deseases transmitted by properly routed waste water. The neutralization of residues of disinfection agents from the animal-keeping area as well as of the waste waters from experimental laboratories is necessary in order to guarantee and ensure the neutrality called for and specified in the waste water regulation. The "consumption of oom and area disinfectants" of the individual institutes could be ascertained. Due to the application of different types of disinfectants, however, the figures found cannot be compared with another. Between 24 kg and 700 kg of soiled washing was involved at five of the institutes interviewed. Four institutes differentiate among the washing of various functional areas and collect it in differently marked (colour-coded) textile bags: In one case, normal ward/department washing or linen is collected in an open-type metal container. One of the two institutes not differentiating the washing at all likewise collects the same in textiie bags and the other institute in transparent plastic bags. Four institutes have the soiled linen washed at the university-owned laundry, whereas two houses have it hauled away and washed by indepent laundry contractors. In all cases, the linen is washed in accordance with the regulations and specifications of the federal health authority. The return air volume amounted to between 32,000 and 550,000 cbm per hour, whereas two institutes reduce the return air volume flow rate during the night for energy saving reasons on the one hand and because of complaints of the adjacent residents about the noise of the ventilators on the other hand. Three of the six animal-experimantal institutes filter all return air, whereas he other three only filter the return air of selected functional areas. The suspended-matter and fine-dust filters as well as the upstream hair-flow filter mats involved in this connection are added to the domestic waste by three institutes without any pretreatment. A further institute seals up these used filters in plastic sacks before adding them to the waste, whereas filters for the return air from the quarantine department are autoclaved previously. The filters involved at the fifth institute are chemically disinfected there, sealed up in plastic bags and - packed in the original cardboard boxes of the new filters - disposed of jointly with the domestic waste.One institute, finally, has the prefilters and suspended-matter filters involved there hauled away by an outside waste disposal contractor after sealing them up in plastic sacks and eliminated by special-waste incineration. As the last-mentioned institute deals with environmentally harmful substances, it additionally applies activated-carbon filters which can be disposed of in the same manner as the other filters.