The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to move forward with the proposed regulations over the air pollution standards for medical waste incinerators was a long awaited one for Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council.

After years of legal battle over the necessity to put in place stronger regulations regarding the pollution from medical waste incinerators, the Environmental Protection Agency finally published the proposed standards.

“It’s heartening to see, at long last, the Clean Air Act is being used in the way it was intended: to limit air pollution and protect us from harmful toxins,” said Earthjustice attorney Jim Pew, who represented the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council in the legal battle against EPA.

The regulations include private, federal, and state/local hospitals, as well as other health care facilities, commercial research laboratories, commercial waste disposal companies, private and state universities, public health service, armed services, state and local waste disposal services.

The medical waste refers to any waste generated in the diagnosis, treatment, or immunization of human beings or animals, in research pertaining thereto, or in the production or testing of biological (such as vaccines, cultures, blood or blood products, human pathological waste, sharps).

The incineration of these wastes is known to produce a wide array of air pollutants. Some of these pollutants already exist in the waste materials, but others are released into the air during combustion, EPA explained.

The regulations call for a better waste management, and demand the proper design, construction, operation and maintenance of the hospital-medical infectious waste incinerators, so as to avoid the formation of air pollutants prior to their release in the atmosphere.

Furthermore, EPA’s regulations also include combustion control, which the agency says is the most effective way to reduce harmful emissions.