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Beneficial Commercial Building Uses of Electricity
Published in Clark W. Gellings, 2 Emissions with Electricity, 2020
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), non-hospital health care facilities produce several hundred thousand tons of infectious waste annually in the United States. On average, non-hospital medical facilities produce 1000 pounds of infectious waste per month. Some facilities, such as doctors’ offices, dental offices, nursing homes, and funeral homes, produce less than 50 pounds of infectious waste per month. Since these facilities individually generate such low volumes of infectious waste, little attention has been paid to developing treatment technologies for this category of infectious waste generators. Yet these facilities face the same medical waste disposal problems as hospitals, such as liability, potential threat to occupational safety and health, increasingly stringent regulations, and the rising cost of traditional methods of treatment and disposal.
Agencies and Their Regulations as Applicable to Facilities
Published in Rengasamy Kasinathan, Environmental Compliance Guide for Facility Managers and Engineers, 2023
One form of waste that falls mainly under state jurisdiction is medical waste. This type of waste includes human waste, blood, needles, microbiological materials, and other infectious waste. These regulations are extremely relevant to many facilities, including hospitals, research laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, and colleges and universities with medical programs. In most states, treatment and disposal of medical waste requires a permit. Before disposal, medical waste must be properly treated through methods such as autoclaving or incineration. In New York State, all applicable facilities must submit a Medical Waste Tracking Form.
Resource, Conservation, and Recovery Act, Medical Waste, and Low-Level Radioactive Waste
Published in Daniel T. Rogers, Environmental Compliance Handbook, 2023
Medical waste is a subset of waste primarily generated at health care facilities, such as hospitals, physicians’ offices and clinics, blood banks, veterinary hospitals and clinics, medical research centers, and laboratories. Medical waste is defined as health care waste that may contain or is contaminated with blood, body fluids, or other potentially infectious materials (USEPA 2021h). Concern surrounding the potential health hazards of medical waste grew suddenly after medical wastes washed up along beaches and the coastline of the eastern United States in the 1980s (USEPA 2021h).
Waste management in primary healthcare centers in Saudi Arabia: a policy analysis
Published in International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 2023
Sama’a Hamed Almubarak, Aisha Ahmad Almass, Saad M Dahlawi, Dhoha Saleh AlMuhanna
Generated medical waste has increased significantly due to population growth, leading to an environmental and economic burden on many countries (Alharbi et al. 2021; The Global Fund 2022). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 15% of generated waste from healthcare facilities is hazardous waste (World Health Organization 2017). Medical waste is contaminated with different biological agents that can lead to serious consequences such as spread of infections, air contamination, and public pollution (Alqahtani et al. 2019). Furthermore, medical waste poses high risks of infection or injury to healthcare staff and thus, it requires special handling and proper disposing. Several countries have set policies and regulations for medical waste management. Such policies require specific practices for medical waste management (World Health Organization 2017).
Experimental analysis of the recovery and chemical properties of pyrolytic oil derived from medical waste with varying components combined via a systematic combination approach
Published in International Journal of Green Energy, 2023
Wahyu Meka, Abrar Ridwan, Yulia Fitri, Yommi Dewilda, Rain Agri Mahendra, Tri Nur Rezeki, Laras Sita Widara, Munawir Hamzah, Azzalya Putri Athala
The development of proper medical waste treatment technology has offered various methods for medical waste quantity reduction, but careful method selection is necessary to ensure environment-preserving methods. Incineration has been the primary method in medical waste treatment because of ease of implementation, microbial sterilization because of operating at high temperatures, and energy generation (Joseph et al. 2020). However, medical waste incineration is still difficult to implement without avoiding its drawbacks, including low electrical efficiency, the release of dangerous pollutants (e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, PAH) and inorganic elements requiring subsequent costly treatment, and incompatibility with certain types of waste (Paulino et al. 2022; Pei et al. 2020; Singh and Hachem-Vermette 2019). The landfill is another common medical waste treatment method worldwide (Hong et al. 2018). However, the practice of landfilling, particularly in developing countries, is still poorly managed, in which medical waste is dumped into uncovered pits, subsequently leading to soil contamination because of the leaching of infectious fluid and spreading of disease carried by animals around the pit (Dharmaraj et al. 2021). Pyrolysis has been advocated in previous work as a potential alternative for medical waste treatment methods to both incineration and landfill (Wang et al. 2020). Pyrolysis operating at relatively low temperatures emits no hazardous fly ash and preserves the produced organic products for further use (e.g., fuels and additives) in the form of liquid compared with incineration.
Impact of COVID-19 on medical waste management and disposal practices in Nigeria
Published in Cogent Engineering, 2022
Mmemek-Abasi Etim, David O. Omole, Oyindamola V. Araoye
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines medical waste as all waste-type produced within a healthcare facility, laboratories related to medical procedures, and research centres. As estimated by WHO, about 75–90% of the total volume of waste produced by health care operations is domestic, non-hazardous, or general waste. The remaining 15–25% are hazardous, which could be radioactive, toxic, or infectious, and must be handled carefully to prevent contaminations, as presented in Figure 1 (Aung et al., 2019; Chartier et al., 2014). However, findings show that 70% of these wastes could have been reused, recycled, or segregated in a way that reduces cost. Also, hazardous waste disposal costs are ten times the cost of non-hazardous waste disposal, and the environmental impact is far worse (WHO, 2018; Wormer et al., 2013).