Medical Waste and Its Management

Abstract

In the past few years, public concerns on the management and disposal of medical waste have significantly increased. While healthcare is vital to sustain our life, health, and well-being, waste generated from healthcare activities can be toxic, hazardous, and harmful due to their high potential to transmit diseases. Other potential hazards may include drug-resistant microorganisms which spread from healthcare facilities into the environment. The hazardous and toxic chemicals of waste from healthcare establishments consist of infectious, medical, and radioactive materials as well as sharps which pose the risk of contamination to the general public and the environment; when not appropriately treated and disposed of, or are allowed to be mixed with other municipal solid waste. Across the world, knowledge about the potential harm from medical waste has now become more obvious to governments, medical practitioners, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Increasingly, managers and medical-staff are expected to take more responsibility for the wastes they produce from healthcare and related activities. The indiscriminate handling and disposal of waste within healthcare facilities is now widely recognized as a source of preventable infection and is synonymous with public view of poor standards of healthcare. If patients are to receive standard medical care and recover in safe environments, medical waste must be disposed of carefully. The lack of awareness, financial constraints, inappropriate legislation, absence of infrastructure, and nonexistence of specialized staff are some of the problems/challenges facing healthcare establishments. The goal of this chapter is to highlight how medical waste can be efficiently managed and disposed. The chapter also outlines treatment and disposal techniques, legislation and current practices, medical waste risks, and its impact on public health and the environment as well as treatment technologies.