(ECNS) -- Police in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, on Monday published details of a case in which thousands of tons of medical waste was sold to underground factories and made into cheap toys and disposable tableware.
In August, police raided a dump site with 13.5 tons of medical waste to be traded, including needles, infusion tubes and bottles of antibiotics.
Police arrested three suspects.They were later found to have sold more than 3,000 tons of such waste, involving illegal gains of about 40 million yuan ($5.8 million).
A suspect surnamed Zhang said they started the business in 2012. The waste was collected from hospitals at a price of 800 to 1,000 yuan per month.
Police said a hospital got less than 100 yuan a month from legal recycling, which offers a chance to illegal collectors like Zhang to negotiate with hospitals.
The suspects also revealed that the waste was usually bought at 2,000 to 2,500 yuan per ton and sold to processing factories of plastic granules in Suqian City or neighboring Zhejiang Province at 2,200 to 2,800 yuan.
The price of the waste would be tripled after being processed into raw plastic materials by plants and sold on to toy and tableware factories, it was added.
Police have since seized disposable tableware made from the waste in Suqian City.
The case is currently under investigation.
