Hypodermics on the Shore

When you head to the beach, you expect to find some leftover sandcastles and nasty sunburns - not a tide of used syringes. But that’s what was found on the coast of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in 1987-88. It destroyed tourism and caused drastic changes in local waste disposal. It’s a horrifying thing to think about, but what we didn’t realise is how often this still happens. Medical waste disposal is a huge issue for anti-pollution campaigners, so to learn more about it all, we’re talking to Ruth Stringer, International Society and Policy Coordinator of Health Care Without Harm.

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