The Government is looking for an independent company to monitor emissions from a medical waste incinerator in St David’s.

According to a recent procurement notice, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is seeking an environmental monitoring company to “provide independent analytical monitoring of gaseous-based contaminants in the exhaust of a clinical waste incinerator over a period of three months with assessment and reporting of the results”.

The notice added that the successful respondent would be required to measure contaminants in the exhaust.

The firm would then be expected to compare the results with limits for small waste incineration plants under British regulations, emission rates in air-dispersion models for the facility and data collected by MediWaste (Bermuda) Triad, the operator of the facility.

The notice was issued on Friday, with applications due at noon on September 8.

The MediWaste facility, at Waller’s Point Road in Southside, was approved by the Development Applications Board last September.

The site is intended to be used to dispose of medical waste, including anything from discarded rubber gloves to body parts, pharmaceuticals and sharp items.

Medical waste was previously destroyed at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, with assistance from the Department of Health, which collected the waste from facilities ranging from dental offices to tattoo parlours.

The Bermuda Hospitals Board, which has stated that disposal was no longer appropriate for the hospital to carry out, signed a ten-year contract with MediWaste valued at $7.4 million and effective until November 2031.

The project sparked a furore in St David’s, where residents said that public notice of the proposal passed under the radar.

Residents were told at a town hall meeting that the waste would be destroyed at far higher temperatures than conventional incinerators, with emissions compared to “a bike driving past you”.