This chapter provides information on the quantities and properties of healthcare wastes in various types of facilities located in developing countries, as well as in some industrialized countries. Most of the information has been obtained from the literature, while some information has been collected by the authors and from reports available to the authors. The range of hospital waste generation varies from 0.016 to 3.23 kg/bed-day. The relatively wide variation is due to the fact that some of the facilities surveyed may include out-patient services and district health clinics; these facilities essentially provide basic services and thus the quantities of waste generated are relatively small. On the other hand, the reported amount of infectious waste varied from 0.01 to 0.65 kg/bed-day. The characteristics of the components of healthcare wastes, such as the bulk density and the calorific value, have substantial variability. It was concluded that the world has made only slow progress in proper medical in past decades, with dramatic differences among countries and regions.
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Medical solid waste is any solid waste which is generated in the diagnosis, treatment (provision of medical services), or immunization of human beings or animals, in research pertaining thereto, or in the production or testing of biological. Medical waste (MW) is classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “waste that is generated in the diagnosis, treatment or immunization of human beings or animals”. As defined by WHO (2014), the term health-care waste includes all the waste generated within healthcare facilities, research centres and laboratories related to medical procedures. It also includes waste produced in the course of health care undertaken in the home. Management of medical (healthcare) waste is an integral part of infection control and hygiene programs in healthcare settings. These settings are a major contributor to community acquired infection, as they produce large amounts of biomedical waste. Biomedical waste can be categorized based on the risk of causing injury and/or infection during handling and disposal. Wastes targeted for precautions during handling and disposal include sharps (needles or scalpel blades), pathological wastes (anatomical body parts, microbiology cultures and blood samples) and infectious wastes (items contaminated with body fluids and discharges such as dressing, catheters and IV. lines). Other wastes generated in healthcare settings include radioactive wastes, mercury containing instruments and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics. These are among the most environmentally sensitive by-products of healthcare (Remy, 2001). World Health Organization (WHO) stated that 85% of hospital wastes are actually non-hazardous, around 10% are infectious and around 5% are non-infectious but hazardous wastes. In the USA, about 15% of hospital waste is regulated as infectious waste. In India this could range from 15% to 35% depending on the total amount of waste generated (Glenn and Garwal, 1999; Soliman and Ahmed, 2007).
Healthcare waste products should be considered as a reservoir of pathogenic microorganisms, which can cause contamination and give rise to infection. If waste is inadequately managed, these microorganisms can be transmitted by direct contact, in the air or by a variety of vectors, and can pose a serious threat to human health and to the environment. The inefficient handling of biomedical waste is more likely to cause problems such as blood borne pathogens to the groups at highest risk, namely; healthcare staff, scavengers, and municipal workers (from needle sticks for example, if the biomedical wastes are handled and disposed together with domestic wastes). In many countries, cities are with inadequate segregation of hazardous and non-hazardous biomedical wastes, as well as a lack of suitable waste treatment facilities and methods. These cities also have either unregulated or non-existent legislation, with regard to waste processing and treatment, in addition to inefficient training of personnel and lack of personal protective measures (Askarian et al., 2004; Marinkovic et al., 2005; Rasheed et al., 2005; Soliman and Ahmed, 2007).
Medical solid wastes management is an important factor in environmental hygiene and needs to be integrated with total environmental planning (Oke, 2008). Elements of waste management include characterisation, storage, collection, transportation, treatment and final disposal. Although, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2004), US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 1991), US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Italy (Liberti et al., 1994, 1996), Finland, Japan and Germany (Miyazaki et al., 2007; Miyazaki and Une, 2005; Tsakona et al., 2007) have already established strict guidelines for the management of infectious waste materials, solid waste management is a major problem in most developing countries of the world due to its ever growing and endless generation coupled with poor management (Longe and Williams, 2006, Meghdad et al., 2016).