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Research proposal on medical waste management
Essay on medical waste management
Essay on medical waste management
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For over three decades, Medical waste disposal has been a major controversial issue within the environmental field. The biggest controversy being, that the medical waste definition has been tossed around resulting in uncertainty of which disposal method is more suitable depending on what the debris consists of. The most common yet vague definition proposed by the Healthcare Waste Management
Monitoring Plan is “all the waste hazardous or not, generated by health institutions during medical activities, preventive, curative and/or diagnostic.”(S. V. Manyele* and T. J. Lyasenga ). Due to the indistinct definition of medical waste, segregation for treatment technology's became a complication, resulting in increased percentage of debris being incinerated. This method does indeed provide beneficial advantages, but studies have shown that the emissions arising from the incinerators pose perilous threats to not only the environment but to the public as well.
Summary
In order to dispose of Medical waste, multiple methods of disposal were constructed. The main procedures being, steam sterilization which consists of the complete elimination of microorganisms from the debris so it will be permitted for disposal in the landfill's (Christina Louise Martini), and incineration which as mentioned by (Wendy Stynes), is the burning of infectious waste which reduces the volume and converts it into a non-burnable ash that can be disposed of in the land. While sterilization is used occasionally in the process of discarding Medical waste, in her article “Medical Waste Regulation in the United States: A Dire Need for Recognition and Reform” (Christina Louise Martini) agrees that Incineration however is the more popular selection as more than 80% of t...
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...asp the attention of the public of the infectious risks associated with this treatment method. The more research is done on the emissions arising from the incinerators, the more efficiently the message can be conveyed. With the knowledge of incineration's hazards, a more efficient treatment method can be proposed. Additional research would inaugurate the question “ can there possibly be an alternative method that doesn't involve such negative impacts? Or can incineration be refined to become a more appropriate resource?”. It would be more beneficial to improve incineration to the point where it doesn't pose as a hazard, but if that was improbable, a seek for a new treatment method would be the only option. Until then the incineration cycle will continue, leaving the public and environment the inevitable losers and this waste disposal method the undeniable winner.
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
(Muller 257) There are prominent problems that need to be assisted and taken care of. Spending so much time and money on nuclear waste is just squandering
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,
Table 2: Distribution of nurses correct Knowledge about bio medical waste management as reported by studied nurses throughout the
The piece of legislation that is responsible for enforcing and regulating the production of hazardous waste, its type of management and disposal methods is known as The Hazardous Waste (England and Wales)Regulations 2005. According to The Hazardous Waste (England and Wales)Regulations 2005 part 1 of the legislation it states in article 4 of the waste directive is that the waste must be disposed of in a way that doesn’t harm human health or resorting to ways which would degrade the environment such as the surrounding surface such as soil, the natural flora in the area and the local fauna of the surrounding environment.
This may seem like a small task, but it required all of the time we had devoted to working with them. In order to better understand the complexity of the work that was carried out, one must look at how Medshare collects the medical supplies that they send to countries in need. Medshare collects medical supplies from hospitals and even large corporations for a variety of reasons. By collecting from medical supplies distributors and hospitals Medshare is also diverting large amounts of medical products from landfills. As we worked at Medshare, we sorted medical supplies from large corporations as well as surplus supplies that could not be used in hospitals and then counted, weighed, and boxed individual components. What truly shocked myself and my other group members was the fact that often manufacturers will find a box that is misprinted or has a cut in the side and contains gloves for example that is unable to be sold to hospitals or consumers and is then therefore thrown away. The gloves inside the faulty packaging are perfectly fine and able to be used, but simply because the box does not follow the company 's standards for packaging it is thrown away to fill up a landfill near by. Medshare strives to environmentally stop the unnecessary disposal of perfectly good supplies into landfills while putting to
Stephania A. Cornier, S. L. (2006). Origin and Helth Impacts of Emissons of Toxic By-Produts and Fine Particles from Combustion and Thermal Treatment of Hazardous Wastes. Environmental Health Perspectives, 810-817.
There are many different types of radioactive waste, but the two major types are “low-level waste” and “high-level waste” (“Radioactive Waste Management”). There are a few different ways that we can store these wastes depending on what level they are. The low-level waste mainly comes from medical facilities or some type of industry (“Radioactive Waste Management”). In order to dispose of the low level wastes, they are usually placed in a radioactive waste material storage bin and stored at the hospital or site that they were produced at (“Radioactive Waste Production”). There are only a few sites that will actually take the low level wastes and store them in the United States. However, they will only take specific types of this low level waste and will only allow the wastes from certain permitted states (“Radioactive Waste Production”). The low-level wastes can also be disposed of by being placed ...
The numbers of beds in hospital have been increasing so that more patients can be received and provide them quality care (Armbrister, 2012). Doctors, nurses and other health care workers are continuousally trained to provide an evidenced based care to the patients to minimize health care complications and improve the quality of patient care (Simington, 2011). An organization has been actively involving in innovation and use of new technologies based on research so that quality of patient care can be achieved without any medical errors in rural as well as urban settings. Doctors, nurses and other health care workers are always encouraged to use critical skills to expand the quality of care and improve patient satisfaction (Bannerhealthcare, 2015). In addition, banner health care has been working for the environmental cleanliness by initiating a think green program where community members are encouraged to save the water, minimize pollution and maintain their environmental health. Paper recycling, instrument reprocessing, pharmaceutical waste disposal and other recycling are the part of think green by banner health care which saves lot of money and maintains the environmental cleanliness and it has direct relationship with the health status of
In the booklet Explanatory Booklet for the Proposed Integrated Waste Management Facilities, the government announced the overall waste management strategy and a specific action plan to tackle the imminent waste problem in Hong Kong in a comprehensive and timely manner. It included modern facilities for waste treatment that is building incinerators. The government has chosen two potential sites. The contraction and operation of incinerator will be following the European Union standards. This specification, as the most stringent ones, has been developed to regulate emissions from the facilities to ensure that the incinerator will not pose health risk to nearby residents during operation. The incinerator will be designed
In old batteries, there is a toxic lead that is causing health problems for the Taiwan people who are disposing these batteries (Gay, 12). Space is becoming a landfill from the excess of space flights and the radioactive supplies from nuclear reactors, which could come to our atmosphere and explode (Gay, 13). When businesses run out of space to dump their toxic trash they go to poor nations because they do not have strict safety regulations (Gay, 31). The landfills on Earth are not the only place trash is getting put. The ocean is being trashed with plastic bags, soda can holders, and large fishnets, which are harming dolphins, turtles, sea lions, and others (Gay, 69). Military bases in the U.S have more hazardous waste and are responsible for contamination in soil and waters (Gay, 83). There are other hazards happening because we are throwing away so much stuff that companies have to remake all of those products. Incinerators are places where waste is burned to ashes and if we recycle these can go away. Incinerators cause sulfur dioxide, carbon m...
Burning waste is not good at all for human health. It’s disturbing smell cause by burning plastic, rubber and some other artificial object can cause lot of trouble...
...ow that the waste is not properly diminished by the use of traditional treatment processes (Han et al, 2005).
Policy is needed to regulate which course of action should be taken and how it should be implemented. Because of this, many plans and policies revolving around the management of solid waste have been put in place. Sometimes however, a particular policy can have its shortfalls, potentially resulting in its negative aspects outweighing the positive ones. According to the Conference Board of Canada Report, “Canadians dispose of more municipal solid waste per capita than any other country” (2013). Solid waste management in particular, involves many aspects, ranging from packaging waste, food waste, etc. (White & Franke 1999), hence, the following analysis revolves around household and commercial waste – referred to as Municipal Solid Waste (White & Franke. 1999) – in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Municipal waste is a major health and environmental concern as it contributes to numerous problems like habitat destruction, surface groundwater pollution, and other forms of air, soil, and water contamination. Waste disposal methods like incineration create toxic substances, and landfills emit methane, which contributes to global warming. According to the Zero Waste Objective Report, “The impact of climate change and the increasing awareness of the role of “waste” and “wasting” in the production of greenhouse gas emissions is a constant environmental pressure… (2009). This leads to an increasing limitation of government to prevent and control the volume and toxicity of products in the waste stream and a growing need to shift responsibility to the product manufacturer.
Traditional methods of waste disposal have proven to be ineffective and have caused harmful effects on the environment. The most popular and inexpensive way to get rid of garbage is burial, but burying your problems does not necessarily mean getting rid of them. Landfill sites pose as severe ecological threats as these mass garbage dump yards overflow with trash and frequently contaminate our air, soil and water with hazardous wastes. About 400 million tons of hazardous wastes are generated each year1. A large-scale release of these materials can cause thousands of deaths and may poison the environment for many years. For example many industrial companies around the world cannot afford to enforce the strict pollution regulations set by many developed countries. This usually forces these types of companies to move to developing countries where pollution regulations are very lenient. These developing countries knowingly accept environmentally hazardous companies usually because they are in desperate need of employment. The harmful effects of these companies were clearly illustrated in the 1960s and 1970s when residents living near Minamata Bay, Japan, developed nervous disorders, tremors, and paralysis in a mysterious epidemic. The root was later found to be a local industry that had released mercury, a highly toxic element, into Minamata Bay. The disaster had claimed the lives of 400 people1. Since 1970 you can bet that a lot more than 400 people have died as a result of waste disposal. If the type of waste disposal were cheaper and effective we wouldn’t have to deal with waste problems, which still plague mankind today.