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| Residents of Alameda's East End will no longer watch rising plumes of smoke from the incinerator on High Street and wonder what they are breathing. The purchase of Integrated Environmental Systems, the incinerator operator, by Stericycle, a nationwide medical waste disposal company based in Lake Forest, Illinois was announced Friday. NorCal, the parent company to IES, is closing the 499 High Street facility. It will continue to hold the lease and maintain the property but will no longer be in the medical disposal business. Stericycle operates three autoclave steam sterilization facilities in California, in Fresno, Los Angeles and San Diego and has a collection facility in San Leandro. The company is in the permitting phase for another autoclave in San Leandro. The incinerator has been the target of environmental groups for four years. San Francisco-based Greenaction led the charge, including public meetings, picket lines and demonstrators chaining themselves to the IES fence. "With this victory we've not only silenced the incinerators but have ended incineration in the State of California," said Bradley Angel of Greenaction. The IES incienrator was the last on operating in the state. Waste from IES' customers that can be legally trated by steam will be transported to Fresno, according to chief operating officer Richard Kogler. The waste that must be incinerated wioll go to Stericycle facilities in Arizona and Utah, a practice that eill displease the environmental groups. |
| "California should be responsible for its own waste," Angel said. He has talked to community groups near the Utah and Arizona incinerators. Stericycle is committed to reducing the amount of waste that is incinerated. In the past two years, hospitals have cut their incineration from 25 percent of total waste to the mid-teens, Kogler said. Stericycle works with hospitals to train staff to separate waste, much like home recycling programs, he said. "I'm not sure how you can comply with the law and not provide incineration service," said Kogler. The enviornmentalists' overt glee about closure is tempered by the layoffs of all IES employees, whcih number between 50 and 70, depending on the source. "We have filled the positions we have available (with former IES employees)," Kogler said. He understands that some have gone to work for NorCal. he didn't know numbers or locations because hiring was done by the local managers. Councilman Tony Daysog, who has frequently marched on High Street is taking a "wait and see" approach. "IES was a company that had numerous violations and was fined to the tune of almost $1 million," he said. "It's not altogether a bad thing that this site is closing." "For environmentalists, it's an important victory, basically the end of incineration of medical waste in California," he said. "Let's see if we can get the jobs. That's the best of all worlds." |
| Controversial Medical Waste Burner Closes (Alameda Journal, Dec. 11, 2001) |
| By Susan Fuller, Staffwriter |
| It's an important victory, basically the end of incineration of medical waste. Vice Mayor Tony Daysog |
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