MTN employee gets needle stick injury
The employee will be regularly tested for the next year for transmittable diseases.
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An employee of MTN Disposal will spend the next year of his life having to be regularly tested for transmittable diseases after being poked with a needle while lifting a garbage bag on the job.
“A needle stick is a very serious thing,” said Mayor Rennie Harper during the Monday, June 10 council meeting when she brought the incident up. “He will face one year of constant monitoring.”
The Town has being trying to push for residents to better use recycling and garbage services for some time now.
Being poked by a needle could expose a person to any number of serious diseases, including HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C, which are not curable.
Needles are properly disposed of at pharmacies and those pharmacies have safe containers for people to use to store them in until they are ready to turn them in.
The Nipawin Fire Department chief Brian Starkell will pick up needles in a safe manner that are found in public areas.
The same day as the council meeting, a dozen used needles plus tubing were found in a recycling bin, where they should not be.
There needs to be even more education, said Harper, who has not ruled out the idea in the past of levying fines on residences who do not properly sort recycling from garbage and sharp objects from both.
“We need to be each of us telling people about what belongs in recycling,” said Harper to the councilors and staff in the room.
Issues have also included dead animals in the compost or the recycling or dirty diapers in recycling along with used toilet paper.
One contaminated load of recycling means the whole load (the MTN disposal truck is the load) is garbage instead of being able to be re-used.
That costs the Town money and costs are passed on to users or taxpayers.
The Town is a partner in BARWA (the regional waste authority), which has mentioned in recent months that it would like municipalities to approach waste as a utility rather than a service. This could result in user fees instead of all of the cost coming from landowners in the community through property taxes.
In some areas, that equals a fee per bag of garbage hauled from a home.
Both the Town and RM of Nipawin are also aware of people dumping their household garbage on rural roads to avoid paying tipping fees at the landfill, now renamed the Waste Diversion Centre.
Provincial legislation states that people shall not abandon or cause to be abandoned on land that is owned by another person or by the province or any public land or in any water any manufactured article, processed material or any waste.
Fines range from $200 for a first offence to $500. If it is a company that is responsible, the fines range from $2,000 to $5,000.
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