Millions of pounds of expired Covid PPE faces disposal, claims firm
22 Nov 2022
A surplus of personal protective equipment to deal with an expected third winter spike in Covid-19 cases has created an increase in disposal enquries, says one waste disposal company.
Mark Hall of divert.co.uk claimed his firm had been contacted by hospitals, GP surgeries, major companies and suppliers who had “a mountain” of unused and unusable masks, hand sanitisers and protective wear.
“It’s all a matter of predicting risk. They planned for the worst, and thankfully the worst – another big outbreak - hasn’t happened,” he said.
In one week alone, the firm said it had received 900 pallets of hand sanitiser, 250,000 face masks and numerous pallets of protective clothing including disposable aprons.
Some products, notably unused face masks can be recycled, said Hall but there are difficulties with those that contain metal to ensure a good air seal. While metals, fibres and plastics for medical-quality masks can be recycled, the process remains labour intensive.
Unused hand sanitiser however remains a serious challenge, acknowledged Hall because a single pallet contains around 500 litres of 70% alcohol-based liquid, presenting a fire risk.
“It’s got to be classed as hazardous waste and treated accordingly,” says Hall, who said specialist treatments are needed to convert ethyl and isopropyl alcohol. Hand sanitiser can be recovered safely into alcohol for fuel use to mitigate the cost of disposal.
“This [issue] is happening up and down the whole country, and it’s mind-blowing,” added Hall.
However, he defended the decision by Government and health organisations to order PPE at scale, pointing out that this had been calculated on the basis of previous winter spikes in demand.
Hall added that workplace health and safety experts had informed him that failure to ensure adequate supplies for a sizeable seasonal rise in cases would have led to questions in Parliament, had the number of cases been as high as expected.
