Health and waste disposal project
Answers
Answer:
Of the total amount of waste generated by health-care activities, about 85% is general, non-hazardous waste.
The remaining 15% is considered hazardous material that may be infectious, toxic or radioactive.
Every year an estimated 16 billion injections are administered worldwide, but not all of the needles and syringes are properly disposed of afterwards.
Open burning and incineration of health care wastes can, under some circumstances, result in the emission of dioxins, furans, and particulate matter.
Measures to ensure the safe and environmentally sound management of health care wastes can prevent adverse health and environmental impacts from such waste including the unintended release of chemical or biological hazards, including drug-resistant microorganisms, into the environment thus protecting the health of patients, health workers, and the general public.
Explanation:
Types of waste
Waste and by-products cover a diverse range of materials, as the following list illustrates:
Infectious waste: waste contaminated with blood and other bodily fluids (e.g. from discarded diagnostic samples),cultures and stocks of infectious agents from laboratory work (e.g. waste from autopsies and infected animals from laboratories), or waste from patients with infections (e.g. swabs, bandages and disposable medical devices);
Pathological waste: human tissues, organs or fluids, body parts and contaminated animal carcasses;
- Sharps waste: syringes, needles, disposable scalpels and blades, etc.;
- Chemical waste: for example solvents and reagents used for laboratory preparations, disinfectants, sterilants and heavy metals contained in medical devices (e.g. mercury in broken thermometers) and batteries;
- Pharmaceutical waste: expired, unused and contaminated drugs and vaccines;
- Cyctotoxic waste: waste containing substances with genotoxic properties (i.e. highly hazardous substances that are, mutagenic, teratogenic or carcinogenic), such as cytotoxic drugs used in cancer treatment and their metabolites;
- Radioactive waste: such as products contaminated by radionuclides including radioactive diagnostic material or radiotherapeutic materials; and
- Non-hazardous or general waste: waste that does not pose any particular biological, chemical, radioactive or physical hazard.
- The major sources of health-care waste are:
- hospitals and other health facilities
- laboratories and research centres
- mortuary and autopsy centres
- animal research and testing laboratories
- blood banks and collection services
- nursing homes for the elderly
High-income countries generate on average up to 0.5 kg of hazardous waste per hospital bed per day; while low-income countries generate on average 0.2 kg. However, health-care waste is often not separated into hazardous or non-hazardous wastes in low-income countries making the real quantity of hazardous waste much higher.