Delray Beach Medical (or clinical) waste includes a wide variety of waste materials produced by the health care institutions. Following the repeal of the Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988, medical waste removal and collection is now strictly regulated by individual state and municipal government offices. Medical waste management is a serious issue to the environment and the public health and as such has to include both infectious and bio-hazardous waste materials.
Definition of Medical Waste
The MWTA defines medical waste as solid waste produced in the diagnosis, treatment or immunization of humans or animals. Additionally, medical waste also includes waste that is produced as a result of related research, or in the production of biologicals or their testing, trauma scene waste and accumulation of sharps waste generated at home.
What Materials are Considered as Medical Waste?
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) classifies medical wastes as biohazardous or sharps waste. By definition, medical wastes include discarded medical instruments, used surgical gloves, blood-contaminated bandages, used glassware, medical sharps, amputated or otherwise removed human body parts, organs and tissue, animal body parts, carcasses, organs and tissue (if they contain pathogens dangerous to humans) and other contaminated items.
Sharps Medical Waste Removal
Sharps are a medical waste category that probably requires the most attention when it comes to medical waste removal. A used and discarded needle or scalpel can pose a great threat to the public health if it is disposed of improperly. Improper medical waste removal of sharps can lead to serious health problems, especially regarding medical waste management facility workers, who are responsible for picking this waste and taking it to their plant to be destroyed.
Should You Incinerate or Sterilize?
The main question regarding medical waste removal is one concerning the method of treatment. Should your medical waste management method be to incinerate medical waste, or to sterilize it with steam (autoclave it)?
Both methods have their ups and downs. Incineration is the most widely medical waste management method (by far, EPA estimates about 90% of all solid medical waste to be cremated) and it does a great job in reducing the amount of waste (80% of it is turned to ash), as well as destroys all but the most resilient microorganisms in the waste.
On the other hand, autoclaving is a method through which the waste is subjected to highly pressurized hot steam for a period of about 30 minutes. The benefit of this method is that it can render certain medical instruments usable again as it destroys most pathogens, while not harming the instruments themselves.
Basically, the best thing is to balance between these two medical waste management methods and possibly incorporate some other also good ones like chemical disinfection.
When we are speaking about Delray Beach medical waste removal, it should be noted that the most responsible for its proper disposal and treatment are those who generate it in the first place, meaning health care facilities, but that we, as individuals and US citizens also have our share of responsibility in this.
