Health-care activities protect and restore health and save lives. But what about the waste and by-products they generate?
Of the total amount of waste generated by healthcare activities, about 85% is general, non-hazardous waste comparable to domestic waste. The remaining 15% is considered hazardous material that may be infectious, chemical, or radioactive.
Types of waste
Waste and by-products cover a diverse range of materials, as the following list illustrates:
- Infectious waste: waste contaminated with blood and other bodily fluids (e.g. from discarded diagnostic samples), cultures and stocks of infectious agents from laboratory work (e.g. waste from autopsies and infected animals from laboratories), or waste from patients with infections (e.g. swabs, bandages, and disposable medical devices);
- Pathological waste: human tissues, organs or fluids, body parts, and contaminated animal carcasses;
- Sharps waste: syringes, needles, disposable scalpels, and blades, etc.;
- Chemical waste: for example solvents and reagents used for laboratory preparations, disinfectants, sterilants, and heavy metals contained in medical devices (e.g. mercury in broken thermometers) and batteries;
- Pharmaceutical waste: expired, unused and contaminated drugs and vaccines;
- Cytotoxic waste: waste containing substances with genotoxic properties (i.e. highly hazardous substances that are, mutagenic, teratogenic, or carcinogenic), such as cytotoxic drugs used in cancer treatment and their metabolites;
- Radioactive waste: such as products contaminated by radionuclides including radioactive diagnostic material or radiotherapeutic materials; and
- Non-hazardous or general waste: waste that does not pose any particular biological, chemical, radioactive or physical hazard.
The major sources of healthcare waste are:
- hospitals and other health facilities
- laboratories and research centers
- mortuary and autopsy centers
- animal research and testing laboratories
- blood banks and collection services
- nursing homes for the elderly