Corporate Negligence Case Study: Becton Dickinson and Its Impact on Public Safety

An Unseen Threat in Sparks, Maryland

In a manufacturing facility in Sparks, Maryland, workers handle materials used to create medical supplies designed to detect infections and disease. But lurking behind this vital work was a danger created not by the process itself, but by systemic corporate neglect.

For years, Becton Dickinson and Company, a global medical technology corporation, failed to follow basic safety laws for managing the hazardous, ignitable waste it generated.

This isn’t a story about a single accident. It’s about the silent, daily risk imposed on employees and the surrounding community- a risk of fire, explosion, or toxic leak- all because a Becton Dickson treated fundamental safety protocols as optional.

The victims are the workers who handled improperly marked containers of hazardous chemicals and the public whose safety was gambled with every day the company failed to act.

The Corporate Playbook: A Pattern of Negligence

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uncovered a pattern of serious safety failures at the Becton Dickinson facility during an inspection in March 2023. Becton Dickinson, which identifies itself as a “Large Quantity Generator of hazardous waste,” had one core responsibility: to manage its dangerous byproducts safely. It failed.

The company’s playbook, laid bare in the EPA’s findings, was one of systemic disregard for foundational safety rules.

• Skipping Mandatory Inspections: The company failed to conduct weekly inspections of its hazardous waste container areas for seventeen different weeks between October 2020 and October 2022. These checks are the first line of defense, designed to catch leaks, corrosion, or deterioration before a catastrophe occurs.
• Failing to Label Dangers: At the time of the inspection, Becton Dickinson had failed to properly mark “several containers of hazardous waste”. Some containers lacked the words “Hazardous Waste,” while others were missing the date when the accumulation of the dangerous material began. These labels are critical for preventing accidental mishandling by workers who have a right to know what they are dealing with.

Operating this way meant the facility was functioning as an unpermitted hazardous waste storage site, in direct violation of the law.

A Cascade of Consequences: The Real-World Impact

The choices made inside the Becton Dickinson facility created a cascade of potential real-world consequences that extended far beyond the building’s walls.

Public Health & Safety

The most immediate threat was to public health and safety. The company was handling ignitable materials, designated as EPA Hazardous Waste No. D001. Storing this type of waste without regular inspections for leaks or container damage creates a significant risk of fire or explosion. Unlabeled containers in a laboratory and a storage area are accidents waiting to happen, endangering every employee at the facility.

Environmental Degradation

Each of the seventeen missed weekly inspections represented a week where a potential leak could have gone unnoticed, allowing hazardous chemicals to seep into the ground. This negligence created a preventable risk of soil and groundwater contamination for the Sparks community, turning the facility into a latent environmental threat.

A System Designed for This: Profit, Deregulation, and Power

This is not a story about one rogue facility. It is a story about a political and economic system—neoliberal capitalism—that treats public harm as a calculable business expense. The penalty handed to Becton Dickinson for its multi-year safety failures was a mere $12,612.

For a global corporation, this amount is not a punishment; it is a rounding error. It’s profoundly cheaper to violate the law and pay the occasional small fine than it is to invest in robust, comprehensive safety compliance.

This case is a textbook example of how deregulation and weak enforcement create a landscape where corporations are incentivized to cut corners. The system isn’t broken; it is functioning as designed, prioritizing the uninterrupted flow of profit over the guaranteed safety of workers and communities.

Dodging Accountability: How the Powerful Evade Justice

The outcome of this case is a masterclass in how corporations evade true accountability. Becton Dickinson consented to the fine, but the legal agreement explicitly states that the company “neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations”.

This is a crucial legal maneuver. It allows the company to make the problem go away without ever having to confess to the wrongdoing documented by the EPA.

No individual executive is held responsible, and the company’s public reputation is shielded from the full truth of its negligence.

The $12,612 penalty becomes the price of silence, allowing the corporation to continue its operations without a blemish of guilt on its record. Justice is not about paying a small fee; it is about acknowledging harm and changing behavior. In this case, neither was required.

Reclaiming Power: Pathways to Real Change

A fine that a corporation can write off as a minor business expense is not a deterrent. Real change requires dismantling the system that produces these outcomes.

• Penalties with Teeth: Fines must be tied to a company’s revenue to make compliance the only financially viable option.
• Mandatory Admission of Guilt: Settlements must require corporations to admit to the documented facts, ending the practice of “no-fault” accountability.
• Executive Liability: The individuals who oversee and enable systemic safety failures must face personal and criminal consequences.
• Community and Worker Oversight: Empowering workers to report violations without fear of retaliation and giving communities a direct role in overseeing local industrial facilities are essential to shifting the balance of power.

Conclusion: A Story of a System, Not an Exception

The case of Becton Dickinson’s Sparks, Maryland facility is emblematic of the predictable and routine failures of a system that views public safety and environmental health as obstacles to profit. The legal document, with its quiet recitation of missed inspections and unlabeled poisons, tells a story of a culture where regulations are suggestions and penalties are simply the cost of doing business.

It is a reminder that without fundamental change, we are all living with the consequences of a crisis that is not accidental, but designed.

All factual claims in this article were derived from the Consent Agreement and Final Order in the matter of Becton Dickinson and Company, U.S. EPA Docket No. RCRA-03-2025-0099.

You can read a slightly longer version of that above consent agreement by visiting this link @ the EPA’s website: https://yosemite.epa.gov/oa/rhc/epaadmin.nsf/Filings/9BF1197EF856A81C85258CDF006FEA05/$File/Becton%20Dickinson%20and%20Company_26%20Loveton%20Circle_RCRA%20CAFO_Aug%207%202025_Redacted.pdf