Earthday Report Card:
Cottage Hospital

Hospitals are supposed to be healing spaces, not community purveyors of frightening substances like neurotoxins and dioxins. But, considering the volumes of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic devices used in medical settings-plastics that leech chemicals called phthalates-and the mercury-containing equipment used and infectious waste incinerated daily, that’s pretty much what they have been.

Fortunately, many hospitals around the country, including ours, are responding to a call for change. According to Stacy Malkan of the nonprofit Healthcare without Harm, just a decade ago there were 3,000 medical waste incinerators in America spewing fumes from burned infectious waste into the air. The Environmental Protection Agency reported these fumes contained 50 times the mercury of what is emitted from municipal waste incinerators. But, thanks in part to Healthcare without Harm’s campaign, there are less than 100 of them today.

Cottage Health System (CHS) has made laudable progress in switching to earth-friendly practices. CHS Director of Public Affairs Janet O’Neill said all the mercury-containing equipment at its facilities has been replaced with healthy alternatives (with the exception of the new, energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs, which contain small amounts of mercury; these, however, are recycled). Non-PVC tubing has been substituted for PVC tubing at all CHS facilities (think intravenous lines, catheters, and feeding tubes). Plus, O’Neill said, other classes of PVC devices might be similarly replaced later. Malkan said this would be particularly important with regard to devices used on pregnant women, children, and infants.