Development of a New Classification and Colour Code for Medical Waste Segregation

Medical waste poses a serious threat to the environmental health without comprehensive guidelines and efficient management as it contains highly toxic chemicals, pathogenic viruses and bacteria. Therefore, proper handling of medical waste with specialised treatment from its source to final disposal has been a primary concern among medical institute, public and private agencies. The existing medical waste classification in many countries did not contain clear and appropriate segregation, which has created confusion among the medical staff to handle the medical waste. It is persistent to mention that, WHO guidance recommends different countries to conduct assessments prior to any decision-making process and improve their own guidelines incorporated with the recent technologies. In view of the challenge in managing the medical waste, there is an urgent need in developing and adopting comprehensive medical waste segregation guidelines to separate the medical waste at the source itself, as it is the key element for the following processes such as handling, transportation, storage and disposal. Therefore, the objectives of this research are: 1) To develop a new classification of medical waste by merging Malaysia's Scheduled Waste Regulations together with European Waste Code 2) To suggest colour code that is recommended for this project which is adopted from the colour code that is recommended by WHO with few amendments. Key-Words: Medical Waste Segregation, Medical Waste Classification, Colour Code, WHO guidance, European Waste Code, Malaysia's Scheduled Waste Regulations.