Essential Hazard Reduction in Biomedical Waste Management

Proper handling, treatment and disposal of biomedical wastes is an essential element of health care for all societies. This area of waste management, known as biomedical waste management, is essential for the health of all communities where there are hospitals, and population centres to generate this type of waste.

Adopting best practice procedures will avoid putting health care workers, patients and the local community at unnecessary risk of infection.

In this article we discuss the various types of biomedical waste, and the reasons for its careful management. After reading this we hope that you will understand a little more about and the very real hazards of indiscriminate disposal of biomedical waste, and appreciate that it not only comprises hospital waste but comes from many separate sources from dental waste management to veterinary waste.

However, of all biomedical waste it is improperly contained contaminated sharps which pose greatest infectious risk associated with hospital waste.

It is easy to forget as well that there is also theoretical health risk to medical waste handlers from pathogens that may be released into their workplace during the compacting, grinding or shredding processes that are associated with certain medical waste management or treatment practices.

Incineration and autoclaving are often cited as preferred treatment technologies for biomedical waste, but if not run to the highest standards with well trained and motivated operators they also can present risks of physical injury and health hazards associated with their high operating. Care is also needed to avoid acute and long-term occupational health risks within this biomedical waste management sector, with toxic off-gases vented into the atmosphere when these vessels are opened after waste treatment.

Biomedical waste can certainly be very be hazardous to human and environmental health if not properly treated and disposed at all stages, and the first stage is to ensure that all biomedical waste is properly marked in the correct bags and placed in the correct receptacles by medical staff when it leaves the place from which it originates.

One area of emphasis for training within the Healthcare Industry and wherever biomedical waste is generated is to ensure the highest degree of compliance with the use of specific biomedical waste management equipment such as color-coded trash bags, sharps containers, incinerators and autoclave facilities.

While such equipment is available for use by staff, it requires continual vigilance to maintain a high standard of training for compliance, to make sure these special waste disposal routes are correctly used by all health care personnel, in health care facilities and at waste disposal sites.

This is not a small task to accomplish, when you realize that there are approximately 30,000 biomedical waste facilities in Florida, alone. These include hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, laboratories, funeral homes, dentists, veterinarians, physicians, transporters, and storage and treatment facilities.

The objective of the all biomedical waste management is to protect health care workers, environmental-service staff, waste haulers, and the general public from risks associated with potentially infectious biomedical waste.

In the United Kingdom the Hazardous Special Waste Regulations, contain Guidance and Background Material for further research.