ABSTRACT
During the 1980s, the task of waste management was made increasingly more diffi cult for hospitals. Potentially infectious waste (PIW), generated by every hospital, clinic, and doctor’s offi ce in the country, received intense scrutiny by the media and regulators. Th e main reason for this attention can be traced to the increase of AIDS cases in the early 1980s and the general lack of understanding of how the HIV virus could be transferred. Th e public became concerned that the HIV virus could be spread through medical waste placed in landfi lls. Legislation was passed that banned PIW from the landfi ll. At the same time, states rewrote defi nitions thereby classifying a signifi cantly larger percentage of hospital waste as potentially infectious.
