What Virginia Requires of Medical Practices
Virginia requires medical practices to follow its Regulated Medical Waste Management Regulations, revised in 2023. The current rule is 9VAC20-121, effective March 15, 2023. Chesapeake practices fall under the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
The rule names Category A infectious waste as its own class. That is the most dangerous category a facility can generate. It must stay segregated from hazardous and radioactive waste, never mixed into one stream. Virginia also adopted the EPA’s Pharmaceutical Waste Rule by reference on August 21, 2019. Practices generating pharmaceutical waste, including hospital pharmacies, fall under that rule too.
The state calls any facility that produces medical waste a generator, and most need no separate RMW permit. Only transfer and treatment facilities do. One detail catches practices off guard: a vehicle or holding area that keeps waste on site for 24 hours or more can itself be treated as an unpermitted transfer station. Scheduled pickup timed to your actual volume removes that exposure before it becomes a problem.