#usphs — Public Fediverse posts

@karlauerbach @compoundchem Public health and solid waste people use the word “putresible” in regulatory language. Food, dead animals, and other waste that are capable of putrefaction (putrescible) must be disposed of weekly or twice-weekly with whatever else is defined as “garbage” locally to avoid odor and fly breeding. I didn’t know that there was any specific smelly chemical associated with the term. Non-putrescible solid wastes may be disposed of less frequently and are covered by many terms that may differ by locale—the #USPHS used to use “garbage” for any mixture of waste that included putrescibles, “rubbish” for non-putrescible waste, “municipal solid waste” for either from residential & commercial sources, “debris” for various kinds of inert wastes, and “refuse” or solid wastes for all of it. Flood wastes are a special case, since no matter what it started out as, it’s been contaminated by a mix of putrescible and toxic wastes of largely unknown types and concentration. #Helene #Cleanup

@drahardja Before Before the #NationalEnvironmentalPolicyAct of 1970 (#NEPA) and the #ResourceConservationAndRecoveryAct of 1976 (#RCRA), US oversight of wastes was in the hands of the #ArmyCorpsOfEngineers & the US Public Health Service (#USPHS). The PHS was so weak that the waste industry didn’t bother to corrupt it, unlike some of their successors. They were concerned about unsafe #Garbage and #Sewage disposal practices and their impacts on waters and health. They did a study. 1/4

started a #wikipedia article on US nurse, nursing educator, Laura Holloway Yergan (1916-1996), worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East & the Caribbean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Holloway_Yergan @wikiwomeninred #nursing #UVI #Harlem #Liberia #USAID #USPHS #VirginIslands #Charlottesville #AARP

#USPHS Commissioned Corps has its first official mascot – Lt. Cmdr. Abigail, a trained Labrador Retriever, “who will provide therapeutic care to patients and Public Health Service officers.”