Business / Industry

Healthcare Compliance Initiative - EPA Region 2 recently announced a healthcare compliance initiative. The purpose of this initiative is to increase the compliance rate among medical facilities in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, encourage medical facilities to develop and implement environmental management systems, eliminate mercury-containing waste from the healthcare wastestream by 2005, cut the volume of all hospital waste in half by 2010, and identiy and eliminate, if possible, the use and disposal of hazardous chemicals. Toward these goals, EPA Region 2 recently developed a Web site to help healthcare facilities understand the environmental requirements applicable to them, and implement pollution prevention/waste minimization opportunities at their facilities.