Order to clean up 17 sea cans full of medical waste highlights Alberta's biomedical trash troubles

Updated: On Aug. 20, 2024, GFM Environmental Services agreed to plead guilty to one count of operating a waste storage site contrary to Sections 88 and 227(j) of the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act. All remaining charges were withdrawn. The company was sentenced to a $13,000 fine. According to an agreed statement of facts, GFM Environmental Services had disposed of the last of the biomedical waste as of July 16, 2024. 

More than a year after Alberta environmental inspectors discovered 17 sea cans filled with unsterilized medical waste in west Edmonton, the company responsible is still working to clean up the mess.

Edmonton-based GFM Environmental Services is facing an enforcement order under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act for improper disposal and storage of biomedical and hazardous waste.

After a first failed inspection in March 2022, and a series of extensions to comply, the company now has until Dec. 1 to dispose of it.

Company owner James Humen said the waste — stored in shipping containers, also known as sea cans — is from tattoo parlours, veterinary offices, and dental and medical clinics.

'Not festering stuff'

The waste includes old fillings, soiled bandages and used needles that were waiting to be cleaned in GFM's large autoclave, a machine used to sterilize contaminated items with high-pressure steam.

Humen said he's had a hard time complying with the order due to a recent shutdown of a government-run incinerator at Swan Hills, Alta., 220 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Of the 17 sea cans discovered by inspectors, eight remain full. The rest of the trash has been safely disposed of, Humen said.

"This is not festering stuff," he said. "We're not dealing with anything that is knowingly infectious; nothing anatomical. We have no dealings with hospitals, so it's really this low-level, low-grade material."

The order highlights challenges Alberta faces in disposing of a mountain of medical waste generated in the province each year.

Humen's company is a small player in an industry involved in cleaning up the mess of soiled materials. The system is facing an uncertain future due to the coming closure of the troubled Swan Hills plant. The facility, which incinerates the bulk of Alberta's medical waste, has been offline due to delayed maintenance since the end of March.

The plant, long plagued by environmental concerns, is set to close permanently in 2025. The province has yet to decide how it will dispose of its medical waste after the incinerator closes. Alberta Health Services continues to search for a contractor capable of the job.

The investigation at GFM Environmental started with a public complaint. One sea can was discovered in a back alley at the company's shop in west Edmonton. The others were found in a nearby industrial neighbourhood, in shipping containers leased from a private self-storage company.

The inspection uncovered a series of infractions. The waste was not properly labelled or contained. There were no signs to warn people of what was being stored inside, and no staff on site qualified to handle the waste.

An order issued by Alberta Environment also notes that medical records were found. Humen said a garbage bag of dental records, mixed in with files from a veterinary clinic, was shredded after being discovered.

The company was ordered to stop collecting waste at its shop and in the sea cans, and to hire another disposal company to help with cleanup.

In March, after three 90-day extensions, an inspection found the company still had 14 sea cans filled with waste.

In a statement to CBC, Alberta Environment said GFM did not have the proper authorization for storage of biomedical waste, which is classified as dangerous goods.

If the operator fails to meet the Dec. 1 deadline, further enforcement action may follow, Alberta Environment said.

Humen characterized the improperly stored waste as an unexpected backlog. He said the problems started when a new boiler needed for his facility took months to arrive amid pandemic delays. Limited access to the incinerator at Swan Hills has further delayed cleanup, he added.

According to Alberta Infrastructure, the incinerator will come back online this week.

In 2020, Alberta announced it would begin to phase out the Swan Hills plant and said that by 2025 it would be fully closed.

The largest commercial hazardous waste incineration facility in Western Canada, the plant processes polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, furans and other hazardous and industrial substances. The site must cease operations because of federal regulations that require the end of PCBs by that date.

PCBs — toxic chemicals that have been used in electrical, hydraulic and other equipment for decades — are known to cause cancer in humans, and can be deadly to fish in small concentrations. Their release into the environment was made illegal by Canada in 1985.

Incineration preferred

In Alberta, incineration is the preferred method for disposing of hazardous and biomedical waste. All waste from AHS that requires incineration is sent to Swan Hills.

According to a statement from Alberta Infrastructure, the plant processed 1.4 million kilograms of biomedical waste in the 2021-22 fiscal year. About 70 per cent of that was generated by AHS contractors.

In all, AHS — including Covenant Health and its subsidiaries — generated over 2.5 million kilograms of biomedical waste during that period.

Biomedical waste from AHS that does not require incineration is autoclaved and ultimately disposed of in an approved landfill. No waste is placed in storage or shipped out of Alberta for disposal in other jurisdictions, AHS said in a statement to CBC.

AHS issued a request for proposals in the spring of 2023 for a vendor for the removal, transport and disposal of biomedical waste. "The RFP process is still ongoing but we will have a vendor in place before the closure of the Swan Hills Treatment Centre," AHS said.

Biomedical waste is expected to be processed at Swan Hills through to the end of 2025. The province is "exploring options" for how it will process biomedical waste after that, Alberta Infrastructure said in a statement.

Dr. Joe Vipond, an emergency room physician and past-president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, said systemic changes are needed to cut back on the mounting volume of medical waste created each year.

"Anybody who works in the health-care system, who cares about the planet, has issues with the amount of waste we produce," Vipond said. "We've really moved into a disposable single-use system where almost everything is thrown away.

"Of course there's good reasons for that. They're cheaper and you don't have to worry about the risk of contamination. But at the same time, it produces a lot of garbage."

Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Alberta, said it's important that AHS and independent operators involved in disposal are held to a high standard.

"There's really strong safeguards in place for good reason and we can't take this kind of disposal casually at all."