Trash Haulers End Dispute With Hospitals

Trash haulers began removing 250 tons of bloody bandages, surgical gowns and other garbage from two dozen hospitals Wednesday, ending a 12-day dispute with a disposal firm that claimed the waste posed a health hazard.

Under an agreement between the Massachusetts Hospitals Assn. and Signal Environmental Systems Inc., the hospitals must certify that waste shipped to the company’s incinerators is non-infectious, an association spokesman said.

Garbage haulers first refused to pick up the so-called “red bag” waste from the 24 hospitals Jan. 3 after Signal Environmental said it would not accept the refuse because it violated state health regulations requiring sterilization.