Waste Management and Infectious Waste

Waste Management

• Health care waste (HCW) includes all solid and liquid waste generated from:
  • Diagnosis, treatment, or immunization of human beings
  • Research pertaining to the above activities
  • Research using laboratory animals for the improvement of human health
  • Production or testing of biological products
  • Other activities performed by an HCF (health care facility) defined as an institution that has health care as its core service, function, or business
• HCW also includes waste from minor and scattered sources, such as waste produced in the course of health care undertaken in the home (e.g., home dialysis, self-administration of insulin, recuperative care)

Infectious Waste

• Examples of infectious waste include:
  • Cultures and stocks of infectious agents from laboratory work
  • Wastes from surgeries and autopsies on patients with infectious diseases (e.g., tissues, materials or equipment that have been in contact with blood or other body fluids)
  • Wastes from infected patients in isolation wards (e.g., excreta, dressings from infected or surgical wounds, clothes heavily soiled with human blood or other body fluids)
  • Other instruments or materials that have been in contact with infected persons or animals

Pathological & Anatomical Wastes

• Classified separately especially when special methods of handling, treatment, and disposal are used
• Includes tissues, organs, body parts, blood, body fluids, and other waste from surgery and autopsies, including human fetuses and animal carcasses
• Recognizable human or animal body parts are also called anatomical waste

Categorization of HCW

• HCW can be broadly categorized into “hazardous” and “non-hazardous” waste types

Hazardous HCW

• Refers to waste that may pose a variety of environmental and health risks
• Examples include:
  • Genotoxic waste
  • Pharmaceutical wastes
  • Cytotoxic waste
  • Sharps waste

Genotoxic Including Cytotoxic Waste

• Highly hazardous and may have mutagenic, teratogenic, or carcinogenic properties
• Disposal raises serious safety problems, both inside hospitals and after disposal
• Causes damage to the cell’s DNA
• Includes certain antineoplastic (anti-tumor) and cytotoxic (cell-killer) drugs

Sharps Waste

• Considered as the most hazardous HCW and must be managed with utmost care
• Potentially spread infection through accidental pricks, cuts, or punctures