Effective hospital waste classification to overcome occupational health issues and reduce waste disposal cost.

To the Editor—Medical and healthcare institutions can be the source of life-saving medical interventions, but they also play a significant role as a vital energy hogs. At the same time, healthcare and medical institutions conduct different kinds of therapeutic activities that result in the production of infectious waste, sharp objects, radioactive waste, and chemical materials. Research conducted by Yoan Kagoma, a medical director, showed that proper waste segregation is the single most effective cost-saving measure; therefore, he has suggested that all hospitals should compulsorily put this into practice. In addition, a hospital should reduce its ecological footprint by practicing comprehensive medical waste segregation and integrating "reduce, reuse, recycle" concepts into its medical waste management system. Moreover, without designated medical waste segregation, enormous waste from medical institutions, especially operating rooms, is classified as "biohazard waste." Thus, biohazard waste is a category of waste that requires expensive handling, packaging, and incineration, which have been estimated to cost 8 times more per tonne than solid waste in the disposal process (Figure 1). The significant waste that has been left out from the classification is recyclable waste, which is the crucial aspect in reducing waste management costs. In medical waste, blood bags and fluid (intravenous) bags are the common items that contain furans and dioxins. The main issue here is that, instead of recycling them, medical institutions burn plastic and paper products using a medical waste incinerator. Thus, during incineration dioxins and furans are formed and released into the air. In addition, for many years hospitals have been segregating medical trash like used hypodermic needles from other waste. Although the main objective of this separation is to avoid the health risk it imposes, this method of separation has been useful in the process of recycling used needles. At the same time, hospitals are now looking for disposable medical devices that can be sterilized and recycled to reduce the cost to the patient by 40%-60%. In the meantime, to avoid worries about the increased risk of infection or disease transmission, a study was done in 2008 by the Government Accounting Office. It has been documented that the use of sterilized, recycled medical supplies did not increase the risk of disease transmission or decrease patient safety at all. In addition, operating rooms have become the main target of administrators as they are looking to reduce waste. Singleuse supplies will normally be opened and kept on-hand for potential use during a procedure. The other items in the same package may not be used and must be discarded.