Health Care Waste generation rates and patterns: The case of Lebanon

The objective of this study is to analyze Infectious Health Care Waste generation rates and patterns in Lebanon. Therefore, the quantities generated during five years by 57 hospitals from a total of 163 in the country have been analyzed. The seasonal evolution of Infectious Health Care Waste production and the evolution of the evaluation of the trends over years have been studied. Besides, the generation per capita have been estimated and compared to other countries. The variance between categories and the correlation between number of beds and Infectious Health Care Waste generation have been analyzed. The obtained results showed that the large private hospitals (over 200 beds) are characterized by their high generation rate: an average of 2.45 kg per occupied bed^-1 day^-1, whereas the average generation rate for other categories is 0.94 kg per occupied bed^-1 day^-1. The weighted mean is 1.14 per occupied kg bed^-1 day^-1. Small public hospitals (i.e. less than 100 beds) have the smallest standard deviation: 0.13, whereas large private hospitals (i.e. over than 200 beds) have the highest standard deviation: 0.40. Infectious Health Care Waste generation has been estimated to 1.42 kg/capita/year. The correlation between the numbers of hospitals beds in hospitals and the generation rate per bed is weak. The correlation between Infectious Health Care Waste generation per day and beds number is stronger. The total quantity produced by hospitals has increased over the five past years. These results suggest that the quantities of medical waste are not well controlled, and that hospitals have a defective monitoring management system of their waste. Annual peaks are observed in June, July, and December. Thus, this study, for the first time in Lebanon, has provided information on the infectious waste generation, allowing benchmarking between hospitals and between countrie

Indicators of Sustainable Development for Health Care Waste Treatment Industry

Sustainable development is more and more considered as a key parameter and a driving strategy for sustainable performance. Today, numerous organizations develop their own performance indicators as no standard set of performance indicators could be generalized as meaningful in terms of sustainability performance. Particularly, the context of developing countries, where the concept of sustainability is not well diffused yet and where economic difficulties and constraints result most of the times in underestimation of environmental and social considerations, requires specifically adapted indicators. Specially, the sector of health care waste management lacks of sustainability indicators. This sector ensures the treatment, before disposal, of hazardous health care waste generated by health care centers (hospitals, clinics, and others). The evaluation system is designed for monitoring the pace of gaining sustainability within this sector. The objective of this article is to propose a sustainability evaluation system adapted to the needs and situation of developing countries, based on meaningful, practical, easily measurable and applicable indicators for the Infectious Health Care Waste (IHCW) Treatment sector

The creation and monitoring of a network for solid healthcare waste management

Healthcare waste mismanagement constitutes a serious environmental and sanitary problem, especially in developing countries. This article describes the strategy and the methodology of the implementation of a national network for healthcare waste management by a non-profit organisation in Lebanon, taking into consideration environmental, social and economic issues. It presents a holistic description of the main aspects of this crucial sustainable development topic: the elaboration of the strategy and the selection of the optimal treatment technique based on an analysis of the context; the training on waste minimisation and waste management issues inside hospitals; the waste transportation and treatment procedures; the quality management of the process; the evaluation and the monitoring of the produced quantities and the established system; the optimisation of sterilisation parameters and process in order to reduce sterilisation time and fuel consumption

Comparison of steam sterilization conditions efficiency in the treatment of Infectious Health Care Waste

Many studies show that the treatment of Infectious Health Care Waste (IHCW) in steam sterilization devices at usual operating standards does not allow for proper treatment of Infectious Health Care Waste (IHCW). Including a grinding component before sterilization allows better waste sterilization, but any hard metal object in the waste can damage the shredder. The first objective of the study is to verify that efficient IHCW treatment can occur at standard operating parameters defined by the contact time–temperature couple in steam treatment systems without a pre-mixing/fragmenting or pre-shredding step. The second objective is to establish scientifically whether the standard operation conditions for a steam treatment system including a step of pre-mixing/fragmenting were sufficient to destroy the bacterial spores in IHCW known to be the most difficult to treat. Results show that for efficient sterilization of dialysis cartridges in a pilot 60L steam treatment system, the process would require more than 20 min at 144 °C without a pre-mixing/fragmenting step. In a 720L steam treatment system including pre-mixing/fragmenting paddles, only 10 min at 144 °C are required to sterilize IHCW proved to be sterilization challenges such as dialysis cartridges and diapers in normal conditions of rolling