Investigations on Common Treatment Technologies for Some Biomedical Wastes

Abstract

Biomedical waste is a specific category of waste that is potentially dangerous for spreading infectious diseases in man or animal and is considered as an extreme hazard. Some health care products and practices are harmful to humans and the environment. Infectious waste is produced from hospital and laboratories, physician offices, dental offices, clinics, research laboratories, surgery centers, nursing homes, veterinary offices, funeral homes, and setting where home health care is delivered. It can be the source of diseases like acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), hepatitis, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases. Inadequate and inappropriate handling of health-care waste may have serious public health consequences and a significant impact on the environment. The increasing usage of highly developed medical devices; drugs and disposable products are a drain on natural resources as well as over burden on waste handling systems. Management plans are required to meet environmental, hygiene and regulatory obligations and to define reference waste products. The plan should incorporate a cradle-to-grave approach to infectious medical wastes, which includes the adoption of standard operating-procedures to address: the generation, segregation, containerization and storage, handling and transportation, treatment, and disposal.

This study investigated the influence of the operating parameters on the overall performance of the biomedical waste treatment technologies. Since it is not feasible to build treatment facility in every hospital and clinic, biomedical wastes must be transported to a central treatment facility (CTF), which may be located far away from the health care facilities. This gives rise to CTF location, capacity, problem of optimally planning and scheduling the collection of medical wastes from a disperse group of facilities. The reduction of hospital infectious waste, the control of polluting and toxic emissions, the avoidance of unnecessary disinfection procedures and disposables, and the implementation of energy and water saving technologies are practicable measures in hospital ecology. Biomedical waste, however, can be rendered safe and unobjectionable, aesthetically and environmentally, if health care facility managers implement the requirements and recommendations of the several codes of practice and technical advice, which are simple and not much expensive. The rate of biomedical waste generation depends strongly upon season of the year as well as distinctive specialty of health care facility. In the present study it was observed that the rate of waste generation in general health care facility is more in summer whereas in Gynaecology and Obstetrics hospital this rate is higher in winters. Therefore the proposed model can help in resource planning in a better way. The model enables waste managers to make long term strategies by comparing among several waste management options and waste treatment technologies throughout the year for a given bed occupancy. It can be used either at a regional or national level for the purpose of setting guidelines for biomedical waste treatment. It can also be used at local level with the purpose of choosing a more environmentally beneficial strategy. Identifying and improving one or more of the processes that make potential impacts can optimize the prevailing strategy.

The other benefits of the proposed model can be in reducing the quantity of biomedical waste, especially where waste has to be transported for incineration, by proper planning during peak season. Municipal Corporations, State Governments, and the Central Government need to plan and construct centralized facilities to recycle, treat, and dispose of biomedical waste. Based on the current available data on biomedical wastes, a preliminary plan for the spatial distribution of cross-district centralized treatment and disposal facilities should be presented.