Health-Care Waste Management in Abadan, Iran in 2018- Current Status and Future Suggestions

In developing countries, due to improper segregation and management of health care waste (HCW), the environmental effects of these infectious components are becoming a major challenge. The purpose of this study was to evaluate quantity and quality of HCW, and current status of waste management in four educational hospitals of Abadan School of Medical Sciences, Iran.

This descriptive study was conducted in four educational hospitals of Abadan School of Medical Sciences to evaluate the amount of production rate, type of hospital waste, and the current status of HCW management. These HCW of hospitals were selected and sampled daily in four seasons in 2018. The waste was manually segregated by the hospital staffs into 8 components (according to WHO manual) and weighted. Proposed questionnaires of WHO for developing countries was used to evaluate HCW management system of studied hospitals.

The average of hospital waste produced was 604.75 kg/day including 217 kg/day of infectious and 387.75 kg/day of non-infectious waste, respectively. The per capita of hospital waste generated in all studied hospitals was 4.13 kg/bed-day. The main part of infectious and non-infectious wastes was food waste and plastics which are recyclable. In addition, 70% of the separation sources were performed correctly, which facilitates segregation. All hospitals used autoclave and hydro-clave treatment for disinfection before final disposal. However, the current management status was poor and underdeveloped.

According to the waste management hierarchy, waste minimization can be considerable if carried out in an effective, safe and sustainable manner. But in studied hospitals, this strategy was very weakly managed. There was no management program (waste minimization, separation, reuse and recycling) in the hospitals.