Being green with your XRays ain’t easy
Written on December 30, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Hey Joe, where should I put these?
One of my patients came in today with – I’m not kidding – about 20 kilos of XRays. The old films- accumulated over decades had obviously had a coup and taken over an entire section of her mum’s wardrobe. Now that mum had passed away, she said, what should she do with them all?
For people who are sick, old XRays can be invaluable for comparison purposes. But if you’ve been sent for an XRay for a lingering cough or a possible fractured foot and came home with a NORMAL XRay, they’re not only useless but are occupying a heap of space. There is absolutely no need to hold onto them at all.
So having made the decision to part with them, you run into a wee problem. Because your XRays contain silver. Sure it’s valuable but it’s also technically a toxic heavy metal which is dangerous to the environment. And not a great thing to have in landfill.
So what do the would-be greenies among us do with these toxic and bulky bits of hazardous garbage lying around? ‘Throw them in the bin’ is what I was advised by the Department of the Environment, Climate Change and Water in my home state of NSW. Yes it’s toxic, the hotline lady suggested. She wasn’t sure exactly what in an XRay was toxic (I helped her there) but knew that our state has no method for dealing with it.
She offered me the number of a private company who will remove the XRays for a fee, but they only do bulk pick ups. But for those of us not THAT passionate on the environment and short of the requisite spare few hundred dollars to spend having the XRays picked up, we won’t be fined for chucking them into land fill where their toxic effects will be around for generations to come.
I suggested that this system is somewhat flawed and she suggested I contact the federal department. Well they’re on holidays right now so nobody picked up the phone.
I rang my local private radiology company- the ones to whom I refer. They agreed the XRays are toxic and must never be disposed of in the trash but they don’t collect them and suggested I try the public hospital. The Public Hospital, funded by the same Government mob that gave me the incredibly insightful ‘throw it in the bin’ advice, not surprisingly don’t want anyone’s old XRays either. The Department of Health also tut tutted but told me there’s nothing they can offer – no central repository for unwanted and unloved XRays.
Thank goodness for Planet Ark. Their website http://www.recyclingnearyou.com.au/ is the place to go to find a local repository that won’t charge you to take your old films off your hands. They give details of a company called Siltech with drop off points in capital cities during office hours. For rural and remote Australians or people who WORK I have no advice for you.
Guys, this is completely unacceptable. We know these things are toxic and yet our own government says to stick them in the trash? This isn’t darkest Africa and we’re not in the 18th century. By now the Government should provide a reasonable way to dispose of our toxic waste other than the bin. Write to your local member, write to your local papers. Let’s get something done about this!
