NEEDLE PROGRAM DRAWS FLAK

A new city-run program to rid the streets of dirty needles and used
condoms is `irresponsible' and risky, charges the head of a new
medical biohazard waste recovery company.

And the Calgary local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers is also
worried about the city's plan to use up to 30 old Canada Post
mailboxes, which have been repainted yellow, as disposal units for
needles.

`While we applaud the initiative taken in the city in terms of dealing
with the disposal of needles, we have a grave concern about the safety
of this procedure with our membership in terms of confusion between
old and new mailboxes,' said Joan Thomson, the union's education officer.

`We intend to pursue the matter with Canada Post because it sounds as
though they are the ones who are participating in a program without
consulting with (CUPW members).'

A consortium of several agencies led by the fire department, city
police and emergency medical services, unveiled the new needle safety
project earlier this week.

Part of the campaign is an insert in utility bills this month that
urges parents to educate their children about the dangers of dirty
needles, and instructs adults how to dispose of dirty needles using
heavy gloves, pliers and a sturdy plastic container.

They're told to take the container to a firehall, or call the fire
department to come and pick it up.

`I'm concerned that this is possibly an irresponsible act,' said
Stephen Wade, managing partner of Helios Environmental Services, a new
Calgary-based company.

`We're shifting the responsibility and the liability from those
charged with protection of the public to the public
themselves.'

`I urge the city to take a very, very serious second look at this
before exposing the public and our kids to a false sense of security
here.

`Picking up potentially infected syringes should be left to the
professionals and not tried by inexperienced adults,' Wade said.

`I haven't had a legal opinion, but I think we know if you move the
onus to the public, the public gets stabbed, infected and someone
decides to sue our city, who is paying?'

City solicitor Adel Abougoush said the city is not at risk. `It's a
voluntary thing. You don't have to pick up a needle. You don't have to
do anything. But if you wish to do so we're saying this is the way to
do it.

`We're saying if you're not comfortable we're giving you an out to
call the fire department.'

Wade also opposes using old mailboxes as disposal units.

`A tidy drug abuser' could become confused and instead drop a dirty
needle into a Canada Post mailbox.

Canada Post spokeswoman Teresa Williams said the old mailboxes to be
used are yellow and a different shape than the newer model mailboxes
now used by letter carriers.

Williams added: `Unfortunately, the situation with a needle being
dropped into a red street letter box is not a new one. It has happened
in the past.'

She said she knows of no instances of a letter carrier being pricked
by a dirty needle tossed into a mailbox.

Don Wilson, a fire department hazardous materials officer, said `there
will always be critics' of any plan.