Posted: Thursday, July 2, 2015 6:00 am | Updated: 6:10 am, Thu Jul 2, 2015.

Police seek whoever dumped dialysis waste in Michigan City By Stan Maddux Tribune correspondent SouthBendTribune.com

MICHIGAN CITY — Police in Michigan City are looking into the illegal dumping of nearly two dozen boxes of used at-home kidney dialysis equipment and 2-liter bags of urine.

Also in the boxes were used syringes and small amounts of blood, said Jeff Hamilton, director of the LaPorte County Hazardous Materials Department.

The discovery was made Tuesday afternoon at a recycling dropoff site near the Marquette Mall off U.S 20.

Each of 23 boxes contained several used dialysis kits, but they were neatly repackaged and there was little, if any, leakage, said Hamilton.

With help from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the area was secured and the items safely removed and placed in storage until Monday when a firm specializing in safe disposal of medical waste is scheduled to pick them up, said Hamilton.

The recycling drop-off bin is owned by the LaPorte County Solid Waste District, which recently began using surveillance to try and curb a problem with large amounts of various trash being regularly dumped at the site.

Alicia Ebaugh, education and public outreach coordinator for the LCSWD, said surveillance video was turned over to police..

Hamilton said the boxes had postmarks that indicate delivery by United Parcel Service to a man at a specific address.

Hamilton said the fear with such reckless disposal is someone through contact developing hepatitis or some other disease that might be present in the waste.

Ebaugh said the used tubes and other dialysis materials can be placed into the regular trash as long as those items are double bagged in plastic.

She said the recycling dropoff area will continue to be monitored to discourage all illegal dumpers and IDEM will seek to recover costs of this medical waste cleanup from whoever is responsible.

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Posted in Publicsafety, Local on Thursday, July 2, 2015 6:00 am. Updated: 6:10 am. Michigan City, Medical Waste, Indiana Department Of Environmental Management

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