Abstract
Covid-19 Pandemic leads to medical services for the society all over the world. The Covid-19 pandemic influence the waste management and specially medical waste management. In this study, the effect of the Covid-19 outbreak on medical waste was evaluated via assessing the solid waste generation, composition, and management status in five hospitals in Iran. The results indicated that the epidemic Covid-19 leads to increased waste generation on average 102.2 % in both private and public hospitals. In addition, the ratio of infectious waste in the studied hospitals increased by an average of 9 % in medical waste composition and 121 % compared with before COVID-19 pandemic. Changes in plans and management measurement such as increasing the frequency of waste collection per week leads to lower the risk of infection transmission from medical waste in the studied hospitals. The results obtained from the present research clearly show the changes in medical waste generation and waste composition within pandemic Covid-19. In addition, established new ward, Covid-19 ward with high-infected waste led to new challenges which should be managed properly by change in routine activities.
Highlights
Ever increasing population growth in cities in pace with economic growth has led to an increased production of various types of municipal solid waste, in particular, medical waste [1]
The classification of produced waste in studied hospitals was done according to the model presented in Table 2, which is common in medical waste management in Iran [1]
The results showed that Covid-19 pandemic has increased the waste generation rate in the studied hospitals
Summary
Ever increasing population growth in cities in pace with economic growth has led to an increased production of various types of municipal solid waste, in particular, medical waste [1]. Proper management of municipal waste in Prevention of Non-communicable Disease, Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Health, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran order to reduce its adverse effects on the environment and the health of citizens is a necessity [2,3,4]. Different types of municipal solid waste have numerous effects on health, environmental, economic and social aspects; Nowadays, the littered waste management is considered in priority [5]. Hospital waste is one of the most important medical wastes, which include different types of infectious, sharp, toxic, chemical and pharmaceutical, and semi-household wastes [9, 10]. Proper management of medical waste in order to control its corresponding risks on health and to prevent the transmission of infectious such as hepatitis, AIDS, and typhoid is a necessity.
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