Main Off-Site Disposal of Medical Waste Methods
Disposal of medical waste methods can be divided into two main groups, depending on whether waste is treated in the health care facility or outside – on-site and off-site medical waste disposal.
On-site disposal of medical waste includes chemical treatment for liquids and microwaving and autoclaving for solids. On the other side, there are two main off-site ways to treat biohazardous waste and these are:
- Incineration
- Land disposal
Incineration
Incineration is a way of treating medical waste by burning the organic material contained in it using extremely high temperatures in large furnaces. This waste then converts into ash, flue gas and heat, which can then be used to generate electric power with new types of incinerators.
Old incinerators types, especially those built a decade or more ago were only capable of burning solid medical waste. While this did serve their purpose and using them did reduce medical waste by between 95 and 96 percent, there was a problem. Namely, old incinerators were known for releasing toxic and otherwise harmful gasses into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, many less developed countries still use these old incinerator types. These incinerators were thus a significant health hazard, especially for the plant workers.
However, United States and most European Union countries have now switched to new types of incinerators. These are capable of not only destroying solid medical waste, but also turning the heat they generate into energy.
As another benefit, newer incinerators are also equipped with technology that allows bulky material to be separated or removed before combustion. This way, recyclable materials can also be separated and sent later to an adequate facility for later treatment.
Incineration is typically the chosen waste treatment method where land is scarce and landfills are not an option, such as Japan. On the other hand, some countries in Europe, chiefly Denmark and Sweden, use incineration to generate energy.
Land Disposal
Land disposal is today less often used for disposal of medical waste and even then only when the waste has been previously treated, decontaminated and shredded. Since biohazardous waste can contaminate the water or the soil, landfills are often located well away from any cities or sources of water to reduce the contamination risk they bring.
Another problem with land disposal or landfills is that they tend to take a lot of space and the waste just gets piled on them, causing need for more and more landfills or for expanding current ones. Since land space is a concern in many countries, these countries use incineration to reduce the mass of their produced medical waste by 80 to 85 percent and its volume by 95 to 96 percent.
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