First needle drop-off box installed in city
AIDS Project Worcester helps with effort
By Mark Melady TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF, May 12, 2008
“Finally, finally, finally,” City Health Commissioner Dr. Leonard Morse said. “We were supposed to come online with four boxes in by January, and here it is May, and we have one, but it’s a monumental day. We’ve launched the first one, and we’ve begun a partnership with AIDS Project Worcester. It’s very encouraging.”
The City Council unanimously approved placing the mailbox size drop boxes at four sites last December, but Dr. Morse said the unexpectedly high cost to retrieve what is considered hazardous waste stymied any installation until AIDS Project Worcester agreed to absorb the collection cost.
The agency already has hazardous waste pickup at its headquarters, Dr. Morse said, and decided to incorporate the yellow box needle and syringe retrieval in its waste cost.
Joseph McKee, Executive Director of AIDS Project Worcester, speaks yesterday at 85 Green St. (T&G Staff/MARK C. IDE)
“Hopefully this will be a model for other partnerships in a community effort to promote the responsible disposal of syringes and needles by people who use them,” Dr. Morse said.
He described the AIDS Project Worcester reception area as a “very ideal location” that may include an independent pharmacy in a few months. Locating the box indoors could inhibit some addicts, Dr. Morse acknowledged “but we don’t want them outdoors where they could be vandalized.”
The yellow box project has been funded entirely with a $10,000 grant from the Hoche-Scofield Foundation. Eight boxes were purchased for $6,400. Dr. Morse said one hazardous waste company contacted by his office quoted a collection price of $200 a month per box.
“That was way beyond our budget,” he said
The other three proposed yellow box locations are the Great Brook Valley Community Health Center, Tacoma Street; the Family Health Center, Queen Street; and the Senior Center, Providence Street.
Dr. Morse said he plans to talk to officials at the two health centers — both of which currently have hazardous waste collections — to determine if they are willing to take on the additional cost of disposed needles and syringes. The Senior Center does not have hazardous waste pickup. “We’ll have to come up with some solution there,” Dr. Morse said.
The health commissioner hopes to place the additional four boxes at pharmacies, preferably ones in supermarkets with bottle redemption facilities.
“I’ve talked to several pharmacies,” Dr. Morse said. “Let’s say the situation requires continued attempts at persuasion on my part.”
Yellow boxes have drawn criticism from William T. Breault, founder and head of the Main South Alliance for Public Safety.
“This is the harm reduction model, and we’re never going to support it,” Mr. Breault said last night. “Who’s going to pay for it?”
He called the newly reorganized public health division of the city’s health and human services department “a rogue agency going full-force the wrong way.”
Dr. Morse said the drop boxes get needles and syringes off the streets and out of the waste stream.
“I do not think that parks, playgrounds or the streets should be the deposit site for syringes and needles,” Dr. Morse said. “I do not think needles and syringes should be part of the habitat for the next generation of children. The careless disposal of needles puts people at risk for needle sticks and accidental risk of infection or causes extreme anxiety about the potential risk of infection. And I do not think our sanitation workers should be subject to the risk of needle injury.”
The yellow boxes are as impenetrable as postal boxes, Dr. Morse said, and identified as drops for needles and syringes in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. Heavy plastic containers with a capacity to accommodate several needles and syringes provided by the state Department of Public Health will be available at the box.
Using the boxes, Dr. Morse said, “Is as easy as mailing a letter.”
Original article at www.telegram.com/homedelivery
Copyright © 2008 AIDS Project Worcester