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Medical waste management Miami consists of classifying, treating, packaging, transporting and disposing of many kinds of medical wastes in a manner that is safe for the general population’s health and the environment. One type of this waste is chemotherapy waste. In this short article, I will explain the best way to dispose if this kind of medical waste.
Chemotherapy wastes include strong drugs, but also human blood and infectious fluids. As such, chemotherapy waste is considered to be a very hazardous kind of medical waste and has to be treated according to the federal and state laws and regulations that pertain to this type of waste.
The right and only way to handle chemotherapy waste is to make sure that the toxins it contains do not infect the people that are handling it, but also to keep the waste from contaminating the ecosystem.
The first thing you need to do when disposing of chemotherapy waste is to take a look at the patient’s chart or the vial for the name of the chemotherapy drug that the medical waste has made contact with. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) issues a list of hazardous drugs every year, which you can find on the “Resources” section. Find out if the drug is listed there and treat the waste accordingly. In case it is not listed on the CDC chart, then treat it as an infectious disease waste.
The next thing you should do is to segregate all soft items into designated waste bags and seal their tops. The items that you will put directly in the bag include tubings, gloves, gowns and similar, but not sharps, which are first put into hard plastic or metal containers to prevent tearing the bags.
This type of medical waste is usually destroyed in an incinerator. Incineration is the most commonly used medical waste management Miami method, especially for solid wastes. Using extremely high temperatures coming from the furnace, the solid elements in the waste are almost utterly destroyed , leaving only ash, which, in the end, leaves only about 15-25% of the medical waste you had at the beginning. In addition to minimizing the volume of medical waste, incineration also destroys most of the pathogens contained with in it.
Incinerators can usually be found with licensed medical waste management Miami contractors, so check if there are any in your area and contact them to take care of your chemotherapy waste. Many medical waste management agencies will not only provide the incineration or other medical waste disposal service, but also treatment, packaging, training and education for your personnel and transportation from your facility to their for medical waste.
Chemotherapy waste, like any other type of medical waste has to be dealt with accordingly, lest you risk endangering the health of your community and your environment. Following these simple guidelines you can prevent such a thing from happening. The best thing about it is that it is not really that hard to dispose of this type of Miami medical waste in the right manner.
