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The medical waste industry is on the verge of crisis, if it has not already reached that point. A critical shortage of incinerator capacity has meant that Health Care Risk Waste (commonly known as medical waste) collected from hospitals and clinics, particularly in the northern provinces, is building up and not being treated. I have this morning written to the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, requesting her to urgently intervene by authorising the acceptance of medical waste at the Holfentein landfill site, which is permitted to accept highly hazardous waste.

The Democratic Alliance has learnt that two incinerators in Roodepoort run by a subsidiary of Enviroserv were shut down in late February by the owners as they did not comply with the stringent standards of the new Air Quality Act. This was after the owners received a notice from the Department of Environmental Affairs saying they were in breach of the law, and were potentially liable for substantial penalties if they did not shut down. To compound the problem, the incinerator in Bloemfontein has been having operational problems in recent days and has been forced to shut down as well. While it is admirable that the Department is enforcing the air quality law, the unintended consequence has been to precipitate a medical waste crisis. EnviroServ have commissioned a new incinerator that fully complies with the air quality legislation, but have not yet been given approval by government to bring it into operation.

While at a country level, if all treatment facilities for medical waste are up and running, there is sufficient capacity to treat all medical waste, in times like this when incinerators are shut down or cease running for operational reasons, there is a capacity problem that can cause localised environmental crises. Each year more than 36 000 tonnes of medical waste is produced. Medical waste is highly hazardous, containing high levels of disease-causing micro-organisms and therefore there are strict regulations that govern its storage, treatment and disposal. There are a multitude of risks involved in poorly managing medical waste, including the airborne transfer of bacterial infections, such as TB, to humans and the contamination water from incorrectly stored medical waste running into storm water drains.

The DA is aware that a number of medical waste service providers have approached the Department of Environmental Affairs over the last week requesting the Department to urgently alleviate the pressure of insufficient treatment capacity by allowing Holfentein to accept this waste. To date government has not responded.

The DA wishes to stress that the suggested solution is in its own right highly problematic as all medical waste should be appropriately treated before disposal, but we are now in a crisis situation. In times like this difficult choices need to be made, and it is the job of the Minister to govern. If the Minister has a better idea, then she needs to make it known immediately.

The medical waste industry needs far greater oversight by government. While there have been cases in recent years of service providers seriously transgressing the laws and regulations governing the treatment and disposal of this waste, the vast majority of service providers work hard to remain compliant. But regulation by government in terms of efficiently permitting new and improved technology, poor tender specifications by the Department of Health, and insufficient global understanding of the entire industry and its complexities, still leaves much to be desired.

The Minister must avert the current crisis, but then she needs to substantially look at the entire industry and make significant interventions to ensure that crises such as this are avoided in the future.