Medical Waste Treatment
Medical Marijuana Photo
By district1 from Pixabay Medical waste collection, sterilization and disposal represent an important matter for everyone, and not just for healthcare workers around the world, because it can create serious health or social problems in a community.
There is a serious danger and we all must become aware of the potential risks that managing medical wastes improperly can present. There is also a cost of improperly managed medical waste to local economies, persons and the environment from the improper handling, storage, transportation, treatment or disposal or medical waste.
Healthcare facilities can either find a safe and environmentally responsible medical waste disposal company or they can treat their wastes on-site using the proper technologies and devices on the market.
The responsibility for each phases related to medical waste management (collection, storage, transportation, sterilization and final disposal) returns to the service provider in charged or to hospital administrations that are responsible for such waste for as long as it presents a danger. Under these circumstances, it is important to choose a professional medical waste disposal company to take care of the collection and treatment especially if the healthcare facilities are not ready to do it.
Biomedical waste management is important for all of us, no matter what we do for living or where we live. For this reason, specialists try to develop medical waste treatment systems that become more and more effective in safety, speed, durability, reliability and flexibility. After being processed with those systems, the final treated waste is harmless and safe for disposal, just like ordinary municipal waste.
One of the medical waste treatments used worldwide is medical waste incineration. It is an approved method to dispose medical wastes and it has the advantage of reducing the volume of clinical and medical wastes a lot, the only remains being their ashes. Even though it is approved, the incineration method has certain disadvantages, especially because the ash is sent to the sanitary landfill. Disadvantages of incineration include its high costs and potential pollution hazards. Incineration do not eliminate waste, but change the form of waste into hazardous air emissions and toxic ash and it spread hazardous contamination worldwide; contaminating air, soil, and water.
Steam sterilization is another method which is also known under the name of autoclaving. In this process, medical wastes are put under very hot steam pressure for a certain period of time and at a specific temperature. After the process is completed, the liquid that results is discharged into the sanitary sewer system. Under these circumstances, people must understand the importance of executing this process faultlessly, because otherwise, the effects could be very harmful. These wasted waters reach faraway places and if they are not properly sterilized, they can bring diseases and infections with all kind of pathogenic agents. Other disadvantages of autoclaving are the risks of explosion of the pressurized vessel; high operational costs, high investment compare to productivity and needs specialized manpower. The output is also difficult to recycle; the only possibility is dumping in a landfill.
Another method for sterilizing bio medical waste is the microwave medical waste disinfection with pre-shredding. This technology is the most eco friendly process available to treat medical waste; there are no liquids, solid rejects or any kind of radiation emitted in the atmosphere. This treatment technology is the best way to minimize our environmental impacts while treating infectious and hazardous waste. The microwave disinfection has no need of effluent, liquid, water or steam, it renders its components unrecognizable with an 80% volume reduction and the output is potentially recyclable. The disadvantages of this technology are the need of a well trained manpower and a stable electricity supply.
Usually, when it comes to medical waste sterilization, more than one method is used to obtain the wanted results. For this reason, if you are interested in this domain, you should perform your own research and you will definitely opt for the most efficient, safe, reliable and environmentally friendly process possible.
Bio medical waste, biomedical waste, clinical waste collection, medical waste sterilization, medical waste treatment.
