ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    July
    11.,
    1991
    SEXTON ENVIRONMENTAL
    SYSTEMS,
    INC.
    )
    Petitioner,
    V.
    )
    PCB 91—4
    (Permit Appeal)
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
    PROTECTION AGENCY,
    Respondent.
    ORDER OF
    THE
    BOARD
    (by J. Anderson):
    On May 30,
    1991,
    the Environmental Protection Agency
    (~Agency”)filed a motion for
    reconsideration of the Board’s
    Order of April
    25, 1991.
    Sexton Environmental Systems,
    Inc.
    (“SES”)
    filed
    a response on June
    12,
    1991.
    The Board’s Order
    struck Special Condition #29 of
    a two year experimental permit
    issued by the Agency on December
    3,
    1990 to Sexton Environmental
    Systems,
    Inc.
    (SES)
    “to develop a solid waste management site
    to
    treat hazardous
    (infectious)
    hospital waste”.
    (SES Pet.
    Ex.
    1,
    January
    7,
    1991).
    Special Condition #29 made SES subject
    to the
    hazardous waste treatment fee requirements of Section 22.2of
    the
    Environmental Protection Act
    (Act).
    The motion for reconsideration is granted;
    however,
    the
    Board declines
    to modify its Order.
    The Agency raised an issue not previously considered by the
    Board,
    the Illinois Appellate Court decision
    in National
    Environmental Services Corp.
    v.
    Illinois Pollution Control Board
    and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency,
    No.
    4—90-0702
    (4th
    Dist.
    Ill., April
    23,
    1991)).
    In that case the court affirmed
    the Board’s determination that National Environmental Services
    Corp.
    (NESC)
    treatment by incineration was subject
    to the
    treatment
    fee requirements of Section 22.2 of the Act.
    Even
    if one were to view,
    as
    it appears does the
    court,
    hazardous (infectious) hospital waste as a hazardous waste under
    the definition of “Hazardous Waste”
    in Section 3.15 of the Act,
    we do not believe,
    given
    the distinguishing factual situation in
    the
    instant case, that the court’s
    reasoning in the NESC case
    controls here.
    124—5 1
    —2—
    It should be noted that SES’s application requested,
    in
    treatment terms,
    approval
    to deal with only the infectious
    characteristic of
    the medical waste,
    and the experimental permit
    was issued on that basis.
    It
    is this biological character of the
    waste that the proposed method
    is designed to change.
    (See
    Section 3.49 of the Act.).
    And the change must be complete.
    Where treatment of infectious characteristics of living organisms
    in medical waste are involved, nothing short of complete
    treatment constitutes any treatment.
    This
    is
    in contrast
    to
    partial treatments
    for other characteristics of waste, such as pH
    or chemical, where partial treatment can make these wastes less
    hazardous.
    Unless the ability of living organisms
    to divide and
    multiply
    is completely eliminated, they have the potential
    to
    reconstitute their
    numbers.
    In the NESC case,
    it was not at
    issue that incineration
    is a
    treatment method that can eliminate the infectious
    characteristics of the waste.
    In this case,
    it
    is the issue.
    SES has yet to demonstrate that the proposed treatment method
    is,
    in fact, designed to change
    the biological character of the waste
    in terms of eliminating
    its infectious characteristics.
    We find nothing else
    in the arguments*
    that the Board has
    not already considered or would otherwise cause it
    to reverse
    itself.
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    J. Dumelle,
    B. Forcade and R.
    Flemal dissented
    I,
    Dorothy M.
    Gunri, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, he~bycertify that the above Order was adopted on
    the
    //
    day of
    _______________
    ,
    1991,
    by a vote of
    _________
    ~
    /~
    orothy M. ,,$unn, Clerk
    Illinois P
    lution Control Board
    *
    We note that HB 2491 has been adopted by the legislature.
    If
    signed by the Governor,
    it will become effective on January
    1,
    1992.
    Included
    in its provisions
    is,
    by January
    1,
    1992, the
    elimination of the term, and all regulation of,
    “hazardous
    hospital waste”.
    Instead,
    “potentially infectious medical
    waste”, newly defined, will be regulated and
    it
    is specifically
    not a hazardous waste,
    but rather
    a special waste with its own
    fee provisions.
    124—52

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