"Blagojevich targets medical incinerators: Burning banned at Evanston Hospital" is the headline to this lengthy story today in the Chicago Tribune that begins:
Prompted by neighborhood activists pushing to close Evanston Hospital's medical-waste incinerator, Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Monday urged the state's last remaining hospital-trash burners to shut down.Posted by Marcia Oddi at September 14, 2004 08:55 AMMost hospitals got out of the business of burning waste years ago after concerns about cancer-causing dioxins from incinerators led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require a dramatic reduction in air pollution from trash burners.
But Illinois still has 12 such incinerators, five of which are in densely populated neighborhoods of suburban Chicago. Nearly 28,000 people live within a half-mile of one of the state's medical-waste burners, according to a Tribune analysis.
"Hospitals are supposed to provide health care, and hospitals are supposed to promote health care," Blagojevich said at a news conference a few hours before the Evanston City Council passed an ordinance that bans medical-waste incineration within city limits. "Hospitals are supposed to not undermine public health."