Recent Trends in Bio-Medical Waste, Challenges and Opportunities
K. Gayathri Devi, Kishore Balasubramanian, Le Anh Ngoc in Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques for Medical Science, 2022
Hospitals, health care educational institutions, research institutions, blood banks, clinics, laboratories, veterinary institutes, and animal shelters, among other locations, often collect biomedical waste. Incineration reduces the value of waste by burning it at a high temperature, eliminating hazardous elements, and turning it to ash. The incineration technique is appropriate for pathological and sharp trash. Biomedical waste is autoclaved to destroy bacteria and infectious material, rendering it non-infectious and acceptable for disposal. Syringes, scalpels, vials, glass, plastics, blades, and other similar objects are shredded in the shredding machine. It shreds or chops trash into little bits, making it unrecognisable and ideal for recycling and landfill disposal. The medical waste will be transported from a common storage site to a Bio-Medical Waste Treatment Facility's common storage location. In both private and governmental organisations, medical waste management has received inadequate attention, resulting in insufficient and inefficient biological waste separation, collection, transportation, and storage, according to this study. The Ministry of Health should pay more attention to waste disposal and suitable management policies in order to enhance and appropriate medical waste management processes.
Solid waste management
Sandy Cairncross, Richard Feachem in Environmental Health Engineering in the Tropics, 2018
Refuse may also be burned. An advantage of incineration is that it can be carried out relatively close to the centre of a city, thus saving in transport costs. However, efficient incineration requires sufficiently combustible refuse and a fairly expensive incineration plant which is reliably operated. The burning of unsuitable waste is often a major drawback in low income countries where waste reaching the furnace typically has a high content of inert material in the form of silt and dust from street sweepings, and a low proportion of paper and plastics after waste picking. Even if it has a high organic content, much of the organic material has a high water content (such as vegetable waste) and is less suitable for burning than paper-based waste. An extensive waste sampling programme in India, for example (Bhide and Sundaresan 1984) found that most of the waste had a calorific value of just 3350 joules/g compared with 9200 joules/g in high income countries. A common problem is the difficulty of keeping collected refuse dry in wet weather. Even in dry weather, the refuse collected in many tropical cities requires large (and prohibitively expensive) amounts of fuel oil for its incineration. It is still necessary to dispose of the residue, normally in landfill. Although its volume and weight is greatly reduced by incineration, most plant nutrients in the refuse have been lost so that the residue is of negligible value to agriculture.
Radioisotopes in Biology and Medicine
Kedar N. Prasad in Handbook of RADIOBIOLOGY, 2020
Solid wastes in the hospital are usually disposed of in the institution incinerator. Such a disposal procedure is discussed in the National Bureau of Standards Handbook 65. The major objective of this procedure is to keep air contamination at a safe level. The materials to be incinerated generally include paper wipes and tray liners at very low activity; therefore, they are permissible. However, if the wastes are highly radioactive, it may be advisable to store these materials in shielded containers for decay to suitable low levels. Animal carcasses and dry residues from chemical procedures may also be incinerated.
Nose-only inhalations of high-dose alumina nanoparticles/hydrogen chloride gas mixtures induce strong pulmonary pro-inflammatory response: a pilot study
Published in Inhalation Toxicology, 2021
Alexandra Bourgois, Dominique Saurat, Suzanne De Araujo, Alexandre Boyard, Nathalie Guitard, Sylvie Renault, Francisca Fargeau, Christine Frederic, Emmanuel Peyret, Emmanuel Flahaut, Aurélie Servonnet, Anne-Laure Favier, Ghislaine Lacroix, Sabine François, Samir Dekali
Combustion reactions from different sources can produce high volumes of complex aerosols containing various components as gases and particles in the environment (Sgro et al. 2012; Chivas-Joly et al. 2016). Solid composite propellants use in aerospace and defense fields lead to emission of complex combustion aerosols containing notably alumina (Al2O3) particles and hydrogen chloride gas (HClg) (Pellett et al. 1983; Meda et al. 2005). Indeed, high concentrations of Al2O3 particles and HClg were measured close to these propulsion systems under normal use conditions (classified data). Thermochemical simulations based on highly aluminized solid composite propellant (68% ammonium perchlorate and 20% aluminum) also confirm production of high quantities of Al2O3 particles and HClg during the combustion process (data not shown). Moreover, these pollutants can also be emitted, respectively, by industrial activities such as aluminum manufacturing (Pichard et al. 2005) and wastes incineration (Wang et al. 1999) increasing the risk of exposure to the workers.
Levels of PCDDs/PCDFs in waste incineration ash of some Jordanian hospitals using GC/MS
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2021
Sharif Arar, Mahmoud A. Alawi, Nisreen E. Al-Mikhi
Waste incineration is one of the main waste disposal strategies used in treating hospital waste in many countries. However, emission of combustion by-products like dioxins, furans, and heavy metals in fly- and bottom ash is inevitable and poses a serious environmental and public health concerns, where these accumulative pollutants can be transported and leached from landfills and dumping sites (Petrilik and Ryder 2005). The environmental impact of medical waste incinerators has become the subject of public concern. The main theme of incinerators is to develop a sustainable waste management by reducing volume and weight of non-avoidable and non-recyclable medical waste to be disposed, and to decrease its post depositional reactivity due to its inorganic and organic matter constituents (Mininni et al.2007). In this process, unintentional release of the toxic polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs occurs, which have hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic properties (Van den Berg et al.2006). These PCDDs/PCDFs are deposited in the incinerator bottom ash which is a form of ash produced in incineration facilities. This material is discharged from the moving grate of municipal solid waste incinerators or fly ash at the top end of stack of the incinerators that was removed by special types of filters.
Effect of adding Dunaliella algae to fish diet on lead acetate toxicity and gene expression in the liver of Nile tilapia
Published in Toxin Reviews, 2021
Sabreen Ezzat Fadl, Nagwan El-Habashi, Doaa Mohammed Gad, Walaa Mohammed Elkassas, Zizy Ibrahim Elbialy, Doaa Hosny Abdelhady, Sayed Mohammed Hegazi
Three samples from diets at the beginning, middle, and end of the experiment respectively as grab sample from the feedstocks and Dunaliella sample have been collected for proximate analysis. Feed samples were stored at −4 °C for later analysis. A total of 30 fish were sampled at the end of the experiment (five fish from three replicates of each group) for proximate composition. All fish samples were stored at −4 °C until used for proximate analysis. The official methods of AOAC (2000) were used for determination of the dry matter, ash, crude protein, and ether extract. Dry matter was determined by oven-drying at 105 °C until accessing constant weight. Crude protein (N 9 6.25) was determined by the Kjeldahl method after acid hydrolysis, and crude lipid was determined by the ether extraction method using a Soxhlet extractor. Ash was analyzed by incinerating samples at 600 °C overnight in a muffle furnace.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Biomedical Waste
- Combustion
- Flue Gas
- Gasification
- Inorganic Compound
- Pyrolysis
- Pathogen
- Particulates
- Waste-to-Energy
- Hazardous Waste