Waste Handling In
Healthcare Facility
Presented by PhD Student
Ms.Taghreed H Hawsawi
Under Supervesion of :-
Prof. Afaf Salah Abdulmuhsan

• Define health-care waste.
• Recognize advantages of good HCWM.
• Articulating types of medical waste.
• Classified a hazardous of health-care
waste.
• Identifying factors that affect the rate of
waste generation.
• Apply the improvement measures of
waste management system.
• Articulate the types of hazards for
health-care waste.
• Implementing HCW handling and
disposal.

Health care waste management
(HCWM) is a process to help ensure
proper hospital hygiene and safety
of health care workers and
communities.
It includes planning and
procurement, construction, staff
training and behavior, proper use of
tools, machines and
pharmaceuticals, proper disposal
methods inside and outside the
hospital, and evaluation.

Definition of health-
care waste
• The management, storage, collection,
transportation, treatment, utilization,
processing, and final disposal of health-
care wastes, including the recovery and
recycling of materials from wastes.
• WHO defines medical waste as waste
generated by health care activities,
ranging from used needles and syringes
to soiled dressings, body parts, diagnostic
samples, blood, chemicals,
pharmaceuticals, medical devices and
radioactive materials. Waste management
is an essential part of health care

• The need for proper HCWM has
been gaining recognition slowly. It
can:
• Help control nosocomial diseases
(hospital acquired infections),
complementing the protective
effect of proper hand washing;
• Reduce community exposure to
multi-drug resistant bacteria;
• Dramatically reduce HIV/AIDS,
sepsis, and Hepatitis transmission
from dirty needles and other
improperly cleaned/disposed
medical items

• Control zoonoses (diseases passed to
humans through insects, birds, rats
and other animals).
• Cut cycles of infection.
• Easily and cost-effectively address
health care worker safety issues,
including reducing risk of needle
sticks.
• Erevan illegal repackaging and resale
of contaminated needles.
• Avoid negative long-term health
effects; eg, cancer, from the
environmental release of toxic
substances such as dioxin, mercury
and others.

Includes all the waste generated within
health-care facilities:-
• Research centers and
• laboratories related to medical
procedures.
• Waste originating from minor and
scattered sources.
• Waste produced in the course of health
care undertaken in the home (e.g. home
dialysis, self-administration of insulin,
recuperative care).
health-care waste

general health-care waste
“non-hazardous ”
- Between 75% and 90% of the waste produced by health-
care providers is comparable to domestic waste. It comes
mostly from:-
1- The administrative
2- kitchen and housekeeping functions at health-care
facilities.
3- Packaging waste and waste generated during
maintenance of health-care buildings.
- The remaining 10–25% of health-care waste is regarded
as “hazardous” and may pose a variety of environmental
and health risks

classification
of hazardous
health-care
waste

Sharps waste
Sharps are items that could cause cuts or puncture
wounds including:-
• needles
• hypodermic needles
• scalpels and other blades
• knives
• Infusion sets
• broken glass and pipettes.
Whether or not they are infected, such items are
usually considered highly hazardous health-care
waste and should be treated as if they were
potentially infected.

Infectious waste
Material suspected to contain pathogens
(bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi) in
sufficient concentration or quantity to cause
disease in susceptible hosts.
This category includes:
• • waste contaminated with blood or other
body fluids.
• • cultures and stocks of infectious agents
from laboratory work.
• • waste from infected patients in isolation
wards.

Pathological waste
• Pathological waste consists of tissues,
organs, body parts, blood, body fluids and
other waste from surgery and autopsies on
patients with infectious diseases.
• It also includes human fetuses and infected
animal carcasses.
• Recognizable human or animal body parts
are sometimes called anatomical waste.
• Pathological waste may include healthy
body parts that have been removed during
a medical procedure or produced during
medical research.

Pharmaceutical waste,
including genotoxic waste
Pharmaceutical waste includes:-
• Expired
• Unused
• Spilt
• Contaminated pharmaceutical products
• Prescribed and proprietary drugs
• The category also includes discarded items heavily
contaminated during the handling

Chemical waste
Chemical waste consists of discarded solid, liquid and gaseous
chemicals.
for example, from diagnostic and experimental work and from
cleaning and disinfecting procedures.
• Chemical waste from health care is considered to be hazardous
if it has at least one of the following properties:-
• • Toxic (harmful)
• • Corrosive (e.g. acids of pH 12)
• • Flammable
• • Reactive (explosive, water reactive, shock sensitive)
• • Oxidizing.

Non-hazardous or general waste
is waste that has not been in
contact with infectious agents,
hazardous chemicals or
radioactive substances and does
not pose a sharps hazard
More than half of all non-
hazardous waste from hospitals is
paper, cardboard and plastics,
while the rest comprises
discarded food, metal, glass,
textiles, plastics and wood.

Factors
affect the
rate of
waste
generation,
including:
• Level of activity (often measured in terms of the number of occupied
beds, number of patients per day, and/or number of staff).
• Type of department (e.g. general ward, surgical theatre, office).
• Type or level of facility (e.g. clinic, provincial hospital).
• Location (rural or urban).
• Regulations or policies on waste classification.
• Segregation practices.
• Temporal variations (e.g. weekday versus weekend, seasonal).
• Level of infrastructure development of the country.

Improve The
Waste
Management
System
Systematic assessment, one could:
• Identify locations in the health-care
facility where good waste segregation is
undertaken and where segregation
practices need to be improved
• Determine the potential for recycling and
other waste-minimization measures
• Estimate the quantities of hazardous
health-care waste that require special
handling
• Obtain data to specify and size waste
collection and transport equipment,
storage areas, treatment technology and
disposal arrangements to be used.

Types of
hazards
of health-
care waste
presence of infectious
agents
A genotoxic or
cytotoxic chemical
composition
presence of toxic or
hazardous chemicals or
biologically aggressive
pharmaceuticals
presence of
radioactivity
presence of used
sharps

HCW
handling and
disposal

HCW worker
safety and
procurement
issues
Ensure worker safety, it is normally necessary to procure
plastic bags, trash bins, ‘sharps’ containers, and sometimes
even special trucks.
ensure access to disposable gloves and other protective
equipment for staff (eg boots, aprons, thick rubber gloves),
needles and syringes, laboratory equipment, cleansing
agents, and tubes/hoses/other items associated with
diagnostic and intensive care machines.
Availability and costs of associated utility systems such as
hot and/or cold water, electricity, sources of heating, etc,
must be considered.

Training all health
care workers
• Techniques associated with newly procured items
and medical equipment is crucial to proper
HCWM.
• All workers in the facility need some training on
the importance of proper HCWM, and their roles
and responsibilities.
• Information about cleaning techniques and
protocols should be prominently displayed.
• Appropriate vaccinations and barrier mechanisms
such as gloves and masks should be made
available to all staff coming in contact with HCW,
including cleaning staff and engineers.

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Mathematical-statistical models of generated hazardous hospital solid waste.
Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A, 39(2):313–327. Chih-
Shan L, Fu-Tien J (2020).
Physical and chemical composition of hospital waste. Infection Control and
Hospital Epidemiology, 14(3):145–150. Christen J (2017). Dar es Salaam
Urban Health Project.
Health care waste management in district health facilities: situational
analysis and system development. St Gallen, Switzerland, Swiss Centre for
Development Cooperation in Technology and Management.
DEAT (Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism) (2015). National
Waste Management Strategy implementation South Africa: projections for
health care risk waste generation. DEAT Report Number 12/9/6. Republic of
South Africa, Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.