Validation and Monitoring of Non-burn Health Care Risk Waste Treatment Facilities in Gauteng

The recent introduction of non-burn, health care risk waste treatment technologies, such as ETD TM autoclaving, microwaving and steam sterilisation into Gauteng Province, has required the development of both the standards and the monitoring procedures that will ensure that these treatment processes will provide an acceptable level of microbial inactivation and will continue to do so during the regular operation of a facility. The Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Land Affairs (GDACEL) has decided to be guided by the standards and procedures developed by the State and Territorial Association of the USA (STAATT). GDACEL requires that all treatment technologies should attain Level III inactivation as a minimum, even those that treat and generate small amounts of waste. Level III inactivation requires a reduction of ≥ 6 Log10 of vegetative bacteria, fungi, lipophilic/hydrophilic viruses, parasites and mycobacteria, and a ≥ 4 Log10 reduction of Bacillus stearothermophilus or Bacillus subtilis spores. With no Provincial or National guidelines or procedures for validation testing and monitoring available in 2002, the microbiological validation of the EMW Operations facility in Johannesburg, the first non-burn treatment facility in South Africa, involved a steep learning process for the proponent, the microbiological testing laboratories and GDACEL. Due to the limited time frames imposed on the validation process, it was found that certain ATCC cultures, as required by STAATT 1 were not available in South Africa and could not be imported during the available, limited time frame. In addition, no single laboratory in South Africa could provide all of the required analyses. Methods to ensure the introduction of microbial samples into the treatment process and the safe recovery of these samples, needed to be developed by the proponent and the laboratories. Close collaboration between EMW Operations, the laboratories and GDACEL, ensured that the most suitable organisms were used, within the given time frame, to provide successful validation results. VALIDATION AND MONITORING OF NON-BURN HEALTH CARE RISK WASTE TREATMENT FACILITIES IN GAUTENG