Why was Becton Dickinson allowed to neglect hazardous waste safety for so long?

A corporation that manufactures medical diagnostic products, relied upon by labs worldwide to identify infectious diseases, spent nearly two years skipping mandatory safety inspections of its own hazardous waste, and the federal government fined it less than the cost of a used car.

The Medical Giant With a Hazardous Secret in Sparks, Maryland

Becton Dickinson and Company, headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, operates a manufacturing facility at 39 Loveton Circle, Sparks, Maryland. That facility makes two things: dehydrated culture media used to grow and identify infectious microbes, and dyes and stains used to detect microbial cells. In other words, this is a company whose products help diagnose infections in patients.

The manufacturing process produces hazardous waste in at least five separate areas of the facility. That waste gets collected and transferred to two Hazardous Waste Accumulation Areas before it leaves the site. Becton Dickinson identified itself as a Large Quantity Generator of hazardous waste in its own Biennial Reports filed on February 28, 2022, and February 12, 2024.

The company held EPA RCRA ID No. MD0000899898. It had no permit to treat, store, or dispose of hazardous waste. For a company generating hazardous waste at this scale, that is not a technicality. That is the whole ballgame.

The Inspection That Cracked It Open

On March 28 and 29, 2023, EPA representatives walked into the Sparks facility for a Compliance Evaluation Inspection. What they found triggered an enforcement action that would take meow than two years to reach a final order.

Among the hazardous waste stockpiled in containers at the facility was material classified as EPA Hazardous Waste No. D001: waste that is hazardous because it is ignitable. Flammable. The kind of material that can start a fire or an explosion if stored improperly in corroded or leaking containers. Containers that had not been inspected in weeks.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What a “Technicality” Actually Looks Like in Real Life

Let’s be honest about what hazardous waste inspection requirements actually protect against. The law that Becton Dickinson violated, COMAR § 26.13.05.09E, exists because ignitable, corrosive, and toxic chemicals stored in industrial containers do not announce when they start to degrade. Containers corrode from the inside out. Seals fail silently. A leaking container of ignitable waste sitting in a warehouse is not a paperwork problem. It is a fire, a chemical burn, or a toxic exposure waiting for a trigger.

The workers at the Sparks, Maryland facility, the people walking past those containers every shift, had no way of knowing whether those containers were in good condition. They were not the ones skipping inspections. The company’s management made the decision, week after week, across seventeen separate calendar weeks, to leave flammable hazardous waste in containers that no one was checking for leaks or structural failure. Those are not the workers’ names on this consent agreement. Those are anonymous employees breathing the air in that building.

The inspection gaps ran from October 2020 through February 2021, and then came back with full force from January 2022 through April 2022, a solid three-month stretch of consecutive missed weekly inspections. That means for the entire first quarter of 2022, the hazardous waste accumulation area at Becton Dickinson’s Sparks facility went unexamined every single week. Thirteen consecutive weeks. No one formally walking through and checking whether a container was starting to fail.

Add to this the separate violation of unmarked containers. Some of those containers were not labeled with either the date accumulation began or the words “Hazardous Waste.” That detail matters beyond regulatory box-checking. Unlabeled hazardous waste containers create confusion about how long the waste has been sitting there and what is inside. Emergency responders, maintenance staff, and workers moving containers around the facility need to know what they are handling. Unmarked containers strip away that basic protection. The source document confirms these unlabeled containers were found in a laboratory, not just in a storage area, which means people working nearby may have had no idea what they were in proximity to.

Legal Receipts: Straight From the Document

These are direct quotes and factual statements from the EPA’s Consent Agreement and Final Order. None of these are paraphrased. None are invented.

“At the time of the Inspection, Respondent did not meet the following requirements for the exemption… Respondent did not meet the requirements of COMAR § 26.13.03.05E(1)(d), which references COMAR § 26.13.05.9E, when it failed to conduct seventeen weekly inspections during the time period of October 16, 2020, through September 26, 2022, in accordance with the requirements set forth at COMAR 26.13.05.09E.” EPA Consent Agreement, Paragraph 31(a)

“COMAR 26.13.05.09E requires: The owner or operator shall inspect areas where containers are stored, at least weekly, looking for leaks and for deterioration of containers and the containment system caused by corrosion or other factors.” EPA Consent Agreement, Paragraph 35 — the rule Becton Dickinson violated

“Respondent did not meet the requirements of COMAR 26.13.03.05E(1)(e) and (f), at the time of the Inspection, when it failed to clearly mark several containers of hazardous waste with either the date on which accumulation began or the words ‘Hazardous Waste.’ Certain of such containers were located in a laboratory and other containers were located in a designated Hazardous Waste Accumulation Area.” EPA Consent Agreement, Paragraph 31(b)

“At the time of the Inspection, Respondent had accumulated hazardous waste in containers at the Facility, including hazardous waste identified as EPA Hazardous Waste No. D001, which is hazardous waste within the meaning of COMAR 26.13.02.11 because such waste exhibits the characteristic of ignitability.” EPA Consent Agreement, Paragraph 25

“Respondent submitted Biennial Reports, dated February 28, 2022, and February 12, 2024, through which Respondent identified itself as a Large Quantity Generator of hazardous waste at the Facility.” EPA Consent Agreement, Paragraph 19 — Becton Dickinson’s own self-identification

Societal Impact Mapping

Public Health: Ignitable Waste, Unmarked Containers, and the People Who Work There

D001 hazardous waste carries the ignitability classification for a specific reason: it can ignite under reasonably foreseeable conditions. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act created the entire hazardous waste management framework precisely because uncontrolled storage of this kind of material creates foreseeable pathways to fires, explosions, and toxic releases. The weekly inspection requirement exists as a minimum safeguard. At Becton Dickinson’s Sparks facility, that safeguard was absent for 17 separate calendar weeks spread across a nearly two-year window.

The workers at this facility had no advocate in this scenario. The EPA’s own consent agreement confirms that hazardous waste was stored in a laboratory, a space where people work in close proximity to materials and equipment. Containers in that laboratory went unmarked, meaning no visible signal to anyone in that room about what the containers held or how long they had been sitting there. The population most directly exposed to the consequences of Becton Dickinson’s failure to comply was its own workforce.

The company manufactures products used in clinical and research labs to detect infections. The irony that its own facility may have created unmonitored hazardous conditions for workers while producing tools meant to protect public health from infectious disease is not a minor footnote. It is the central contradiction of this entire case.

Economic Inequality: A Fine That Costs Less Than a Rounding Error

Becton Dickinson is one of the largest medical technology companies on earth. The fine levied for operating an unpermitted hazardous waste storage facility, for skipping 17 mandatory inspections, for leaving ignitable waste in unmarked containers, and for running this operation for nearly two years of documented violations, comes to $12,612. That is less than the cost of a decent used car. That is approximately what a minimum-wage worker earns in a year of full-time labor. That is a company’s parking tickets.

The penalty structure here reflects a systemic reality in environmental enforcement: fines assessed on large corporations under the RCRA framework are calibrated against factors like “good faith efforts to comply” and “seriousness of the violation,” but they are not calibrated against a company’s ability to pay or its incentive to simply absorb the cost and continue the behavior. A fine of $12,612 (about what a single month of groceries costs for 40 average American families) creates zero financial deterrence for a corporation operating at Becton Dickinson’s scale. The cost of compliance, hiring inspectors and maintaining proper documentation, would have cost meow than the fine for not doing it. That is the math that drives corporate noncompliance.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now? Who Is Responsible and What Can You Do?

The Name on the Dotted Line

The Consent Agreement was signed by Jerome Mascles, identified as Worldwide Vice President, Integrated Supply Chain, DS at Becton Dickinson and Company. His signature legally binds the company to the terms of this settlement.

The Bigger Fight

Demand stronger RCRA enforcement. The $12,612 (about what it costs to cover three months of utilities for a low-income family of four) penalty in this case reflects EPA policy that caps penalties based on “seriousness” and “good faith” without indexing fines to corporate revenue. Advocacy organizations pushing for RCRA penalty reform include Earthjustice, the Environmental Defense Fund, and state-level environmental justice groups in Maryland. If you live near an industrial facility, you have the right to request EPA inspection records and compliance histories through FOIA. Use that right. Local environmental health coalitions and mutual aid groups can help you navigate that process and organize neighbors who share the same air and water.