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Poor medical waste management in Miami Beach can produce disastrous results. It can expose health care workers (doctors, surgeons, physicians, veterinarians…), waste handlers, patients, visitors, and the community as a whole to the ill effects of infection, injury and toxins. If that is not enough, unsuitable bio-medical waste management in Miami Beach also poses a risk of polluting the environment around us.
Thus, it is necessary that we treat and dispose of medical waste in an appropriate way in Miami Beach.
What is included as medical waste?
In order to organize a proper bio-medical waste management, it is important to first understand medical waste and what it is exactly. Medical waste includes, among other things, solid waste produced after diagnosing, treating and/or immunizing people or animals. In addition, medical waste also involves products created during research and testing of biological products. As such, medical waste management should include, among the rest, the following:
• Bodily fluid-soaked bandages
• Discarded surgical gloves and other personal protective equipment
• Discarded needles used to either draw blood or give shots
• Removed body organs
• Discarded lancets
• Cultures, stocks, and swabs used to inoculate cultures
• Culture dishes and other glassware
• Discarded surgical instruments
Where is medical waste coming from?
When it comes to bio-medical waste management in Miami Beach, one of the crucial things is understanding where it is coming from. It is estimated that hospitals, clinics, laboratories and other health care facilities and providers generate over 2,000,000 tons of medical waste. Hospitals, of course, being the largest generators of such waste material.
What categories of medical waste are out there?
Typically, medical waste is classified into four groups:
1. Infectious
2. Hazardous
3. Radioactive
4. Other
Infectious medical waste is any waste material that has the potential of causing infections to people. It includes, among other things, human or animal tissue, blood, blood-soaked bandages, culture stocks or swabs and other. This waste is also often labeled as “pathological”.
Hazardous medical waste includes waste that can affect humans in non-infectious ways. It includes sharps (discarded medical instruments capable of piercing or cutting human skin, such as needles, scalpels, blades and so on), but it also includes chemicals (medical and industrial)
Radioactive medical waste is any waste that is produced as a result of nuclear medicine treatment (such as cancer therapy, or chemotherapy). This type of medical waste also includes medical equipment that uses radioactive isotopes. For correct bio-medical waste management, it should also be noted and remembered that pathological medical waste contaminated with radioactive material should be treated and disposed of as radioactive, rather than infectious and pathological.
General waste constitutes a large percentage (about 80-85%) of all medical waste produced by facilities and is therefore important when we discuss medical waste management in Miami Beach. This waste is little different from regular household or office waste and includes plastic, paper, liquids and other materials that do not belong in any of the three previous categorizes.
Where does medical waste usually go and how is it disposed of?
Until a short time ago, the main and only method of medical waste management was by incineration. However, incineration is not the most eco-friendly way, so other processes for Miami Beach bio-medical waste management are used more and more today instead.
