Have you or a loved one ever been hospitalized? Most of the time when we go to a hospital, we are only concerned that our loved one is receiving the best care available. The best care should mean that the hospital uses sterile supplies and disposes of them appropriately. All these sterile supplies generate a lot of waste. Medical waste is the third largest source of waste in the United States. (Globalization 101) Hospitals in the United States produce more than 5.9 million tons of waste annually. (Practice Greenhealth) Large urban hospitals can generate more than two million tons of waste each year. (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives ) Medical waste is a major problem and if it is not disposed properly it can affect humans and other things in this world. Dumping refuse into the ocean, particularly medical waste, affects not only sea life, but also human life.
The problem of dumping refuse into the ocean became a public concern in 1987 when medical waste, such as syringes and needles, washed up on the shores in New Jersey. At the time, AIDS was making headline news. This worried and concerned many people. People wondered where it came from, what it was doing there, if is it contaminated with AIDS or other viruses, and how it got there. Police looked from months to find the cause of this strange event. Then finally they found their victim. A company was paid, in New York, to properly dispose a large load of garbage, which contained medical waste. The company took the load and dumped it into the ocean. In theory, they believed it would be carried away by the Gulf Stream and would eventually sink. Unaware that it contained medical waste such as syringes that floats, they dumped the large load of garbage into the ocean. To a...
... middle of paper ...
...ls should be incinerated unless an air scrubber is used (Cornell University) (Wisegeek). Alternatives to incineration include steam sterilization, dry heat thermal disinfection, irradiation, and biological processes (Pollution Issues).
Negligent medical waste management is a major environmental issue particularly when it is dumped in the ocean. There are some serious effects of medical waste being dumped into the ocean including the spread of infectious disease, ingestion of toxins, and spread of bacteria and viruses. Medical waste enters the ocean because of improper disposal and illegal dumping. Proper disposal of medical waste involves sterilization or incineration. There is a surprising connection between the ocean’s health and ours. By stopping the dumping of waste into our oceans we are saving both sea life and protecting toxins from entering the food chain.
One of the most common forms of errors found in the medical field is the recycling of soiled equipment. The repeated use of dirty medical equipment is found commonly in the poor regions of the world
Waste management is an especially challenging issue of today’s society especially considering the heavy metals and biomedical waste produced within the profession (Muhameddagic, Muhamedagic and Masic, 2009). Dental practices also create large quantities of waste cotton, latex, plastic, glass as well as various other materials which all have the potential to be contaminated with body fluids (Sudhakar & Chandrashekar,
M., Gutierrez…). This is something that the Marine Debris Program is looking to eliminate. By removing the plastic from the water, and preventing it from leaking its chemicals, the eating of the plastic in general, and the prospect of these plastics being breeding grounds for dangerous pathogens, the marine environment would be safer for animals and humans alike. So, it is clear, the removal of this harmful debris, specifically plastic is something that must be done through this Citizen Science
This problem may seem prevalent and it is very important to know about. It affects marine life in many ways, but humans are also greatly affected.by this problem. People don’t realize what this problem does to them. However the human race can always work and solve this issue. People shouldn’t dump trash in the ocean or any water source. Trash can destroy coral reefs and other important ecosystems and ruin marine life. Most important sewage plants shouldn’t dump raw sewage into the ocean because it provides nutrients to harmful algae. Governments around the world should put more restrictions on sewage and the disposal of it. But if the solution wants to be solved people must work together.
Since the industrial revolution the United States has experienced tremendous change. This change has created a consumer culture that has resulted in the creation of mass amounts of waste. According to reports, in the year 2003 Americans produced almost 500 million pounds waste. Alone the U.S consumes 30% of the world’s resources and produces 30% of all waste (Conquest, 2). These numbers attest to a consumer culture that has created an undesirable waste problem that is yet to be resolved. However, not everyone is affected proportionately by waste, as predominantly low-income communities live in close proximity to waste related sites. In this paper I will discuss how low-income communities are disproportionately subjected to the detrimental health effects caused by waste, and I will argue that low-income communities have historically and are currently responding to counter the effects of waste to protect their communities.
Recently, an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean was found to be polluted with 38 million pieces of plastic that had been carried over by currents (Wang, “No one lives on this remote Pacific island”). The island, dubbed ‘trash island’, is home to diverse animal populations that have all been devastated by the pollution. On the beach, hundreds of birds were seen dead by reporters and scientists. When analyzed, the primary cause of death turned out to be consumption of plastic. When animals ingest plastic, it clogs their stomach and poisons their body with toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals cause an array of issues, such as reproductive and endocrine problems. Eventually, this leads to death (Knoblauch, “The environmental toll of plastics”). But due to the nature of plastics, it can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely degrade, meaning that as plastic pollution continues to build up, more places like ‘trash island’ will be discovered. According to conservation scientist Alex Bond, “…[The island] is just an indicator of what’s floating around out there” (Wang, “No one lives on this remote Pacific
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest garbage dump in the world. According to estimates made by experts, the patch holds approximately three and a half million tons of garbage. Majority of this garbage is made of plastic. This waste is a threatening problem to the patch’s surrounding wildlife. Many animals are caught in the floating pieces of trash and it is the cause of the deaths of about one million birds and about one hundred thousand other sea animals. Due to the oceans nature and constant moving currents, the trash is also constantly moving. Therefore the size of the patch never stays the exact same. However, scientists believe it be approximately two times the size of Texas. The plastic is mostly broken down from larger materials into small pieces. The patch has been referred to as one scientist as a, “plastic soup”. This garbage poses such a threat mainly because it does not biodegrade. These plastics will be in the ocean essentially forever. Many plastics also contain chemicals, and absorb other chemicals and pollutants they become exposed to. These newly absorbed toxins are then leaked and distributed back into the ocean over time. The chemicals can directly enter the bodies of the animals which consume them. A study was being conducted by scientists of the fish that inhabit the area around the patch. What the researchers found inside the belly of one fish (that was no larger in size than that of a finger), was eighty four small fragments of plastic. It does not take scientists to recognize the impact of this problem, Zach Gold, who is sixteen, is from Santa Monica California. Zach enjoys s...
A major failure observed in healthcare is the inadequate amount of supplies needed to execute a required task consequently disrupting providers of patient care to search for the needed supplies (Richardson et al., 2014; Tucker & Edmondson, 2003). This type of problem accounts for 86% of hospital failures and frustration among nurses (Ferenc, 2010; Tucker & Edmondson, 2003). Further more, nurse’s frustration comes from placing their patients safety on the line in lieu of hunting down the necessary materials (Ferenc, 2010). In addition, 16% of nurses reported that they had given up on searching for the needed supplies within a six-month period (Middleton, 2009). Tucker and Edmondson (2003) reported that nurses spent approximately one-hour
Dealing with waste can be very difficult to do when there are 7 billion people in the world and out of all these people America supports about 365 million of those people. According to an article on Forbes magazine the United States contributes about thirty percent of the world’s waste, places like Japan also are contribute quite a bit of recyclable waste. Recyclable waste is just that wasting there are many things that people use and throw away on a daily bases that could be recycled, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, steel cans, tin cans, card board glass and etc. This list could go on for quite some time so let’s put the foot down and talk about recycling.
Wheeler, Drew. “Voyage to the Center of the Trash.” Scuba Drew’s Trash Voyage. AlphaBytes computer services, n.d. Web. 17 May 2010.
... converting plastic waste into useful products are being affected by pollution; this contamination is found within containers where plastics are collected. But the same risk of pollution carries downside consequences in which workers and people responsible for cleaning and disinfecting the plastic materials are not doing the best to eliminate plastic waste, and to disinfect the infected bacteria and microorganisms from the atmosphere and environment. Organizations from China and India are the largest in the world, they collect and purchase used plastic from United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America (Minguez 2013). These companies do not bother to sanitize the products before the recycling process; for this reason the planet earth is getting a worse environmental condition, and it is destroying lives of living beings, and natural resources as well (Uddin 2014).
Different administrators choose different methods of waste disposal which can depend on the size of the hospital and the available systems of waste disposal in the area. Whichever way of waste disposal that a hospital administrator chooses, He/she should consider the environment implications of the same. Neriz Alicia & Ramis (2014) ascertain that: Biomedical waste is capable of inflicting injuries to both the healthcare worker and the patient or anyone around
...ic and get ill from it. All this trash can kill the mammals in the ocean even if it’s just floating on top of the water. It’s still harmful to them and humans. It can kill, suffocate or poison the mammal. If humans decide to go swimming in the ocean and choke on a piece of plastic that breaks into pieces and they open there mouth for some reason and get trash in their mouth they can choke and maybe die. Just because people like to put their trash anywhere they please.
While our population continues to grow, so does the amount of waste we produce. Due to the fact that there are so many humans, a majority of the waste we produce do not get disposed of properly and it eventually ends up contaminating the la...
The solid wastes are produce not only by households; it’s contributed by hospitals and corporations. Hospitals throw away bandages, use needles and latex gloves, these items hospitals throw away daily all the time because they can’t be reuse for the safety of its patients. Corporations throw away a lot of waste as well such as papers that they use whether in writing or in projects. All of these leftovers after consumptions are waste that is produced by our daily actions.