Alternative services in place for clinical waste following facility outage

The facility uses hammers and cutters to crush and treat solid clinical waste, churning through 270 tonnes each week. An outage at the site in late February meant that alternative disposal methods were needed until the hammermill is back online.

“We worked with our suppliers to confirm alternative disposal procedures to manage the 270 tonnes of weekly capacity that would otherwise have been processed at the high-speed hammermill,” says HSV Head of Indirect Products and Services James Lee.

“The clinical waste backlog is now beginning to clear at a number of hospital sites, and we estimate the backlog will soon be dispersed,” he says.

“Our priority is to provide alternative waste collection services to those hospital sites with the most urgent requirements, as a return to normal hammermill operations is expected to be some weeks away.”

HSV is prioritising sites with critical backlogs based on reports received via a Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) survey, and direct escalation.

“We’ve provided details of these alternate methods directly to health services, and we’re continuing to regularly update hospitals on progress to clear the backlog,” says James.

Health services can use the following channels to advise any disrupted collections and deliveries that may be creating a critical risk:

• Cleanaway Customer Service: https://www.cleanaway.com.au/contact-us/
• Cleanaway Account Manager
• Cleanaway National Manager Natino Malvaso
• HSV Customer Relationship Manager
• HSV Helpdesk: helpdesk@healthsharevic.org.au or 03 9947 3900

Health services should update the DELWP survey with any critical disruptions to their waste collection service, or if the backlog at their site has cleared. The survey at https://arcg.is/eCXvG is monitored daily by the DELWP team, and for assistance please contact waste.emergency@delwp.vic.gov.au.

HSV continues to advise health service stakeholders as alternative disposal procedures are deployed, and daily updates on Cleanaway services are posted to the HSV website Contact updates feed at the bottom of the My Dashboard home page. Please note you must be logged into My Dashboard to view this section.