Basel Action Network’s Jim Puckett and Sharps Compliance’s David Tusa
“Green is Good” welcomes Basel Action Network’s Jim Puckett and Sharps Compliance’s David Tusa to discuss their green initiatives.
Jim Puckett, Executive Director and Founder, Basel Action Network
Jim Puckett is the Executive Director and founder of the Basel Action Network (BAN). Puckett has spent most of his working life in “toxic trade,” including 22 years at Greenpeace. Puckett has long been aware and concerned with the grimiest of toxic trade methods: Third World dumping.
In 2002, following a trip to China, BAN produced the filmExporting Harm, depicting exported toxic waste from the U.S. landing in China, where the most egregious forms of dumping are still taking place to this day.
“Nowadays, more and more things that we take for granted are electronic,” Puckett explains. “It wouldn’t be such a horrible problem were it not for the fact that it’s toxic waste. We have to be very careful how we deal with it.”
David Tusa, President and CEO, Sharps Compliance, Inc.
David Tusa is the President and Chief Executive Officer at Sharps Compliance, Inc., a company that prevents the improper disposal of medical waste and unused medications. Surprisingly, outside of the hospital and healthcare setting, there is little legislation in place to regulate disposal methods of these materials.
Yet Sharps has honed in on this sector on its own, keeping an astounding 600 million syringes out of the waste stream over the past 15 years. Still, Tusa believes Sharps is less than 5% penetrated in this vast market.
“Medical waste can create quite the hazard,” Tusa reveals. “You can contract a disease — you see stories about it every day. It’s a major issue in this country.”
