Applications of GIS and Expert Systems for Hospital Wastes Site Selection: A Case Study in Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

Protecting the environment has been long considered as one of the most paramount issues which have a direct impact on the earth landscape and all the living organisms. For that reason, attention must be paid to pollutant factors and destruction of the environment, while appealing to the best strategies to diminish environmental pollution. Among these influential factors is the hospital waste generated in hospitals and medical clinics that are transmitted to the environment. There are several ways to disposal of such waste, like burning, burying, recycling, etc. In line with this, it is substantial to adopt the best methods in order to select the most appropriate waste disposal site and to manage the quantity of the generated waste effectively, which are the objectives of this research. To fulfill this, the data was collected by interviews and field observations which were then analyzed using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Expert Choice and geospatial modelling application. Although, to this date numerous studies have been carried out on hospital waste as a case study revolving around the quantity of the type of waste generated in hospitals as well as identifying proper landfill sites using a Geographic Information System (GIS), only a few of them have concentrated on determining optimal disposal methods. To fill this gap, the current research was an endeavor to determine the most optimal method for disposal of hospital waste by collecting the data via questionnaires distributed among the individuals in relation to hospital wastes and environmentalists in Mashhad. In this study, using questionnaires, interviews, and field observations, the data was collected and the quantity of each type of waste generated in eight studied hospitals was estimated. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used to prioritize different methods of waste disposal on the basis of the criteria influential in selecting the optimal method. The results revealed that the waste sorting methods in the studied hospitals dramatically differ from the standards defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). Moreover, it was observed that the most prioritized methods of disposal were recycling and burying the remains, while landfill and burning methods take the second priority rank and compost and RDF production come last. The results show that in addition to less contamination, there are other effective measures to be adopted as the optimal waste disposal method. What is more, based on the quantity of hospital waste generated in the hospitals in Mashhad, the upward trend in the production of such wastes seems to be alarming, being dramatically different from the global standards. It should be noted that by examining the conditions effective in selecting the waste disposal site in the GIS software, it was found that the current waste disposal site located 32 km off Mayamey Road suffers from worth-mentioning defects, which is are environmentally acceptable.