How Do You Practice Proper Hospital Medical Waste Disposal
3/21/2023
Hospital medical waste is a type of waste that shouldn’t be disposed of in any trash bin or landfill without stringent procedures. This is especially true for chemical waste as it can be toxic and harmful when it reaches nearby water supplies.
It’s for this reason that proper hospital medical waste disposal is necessary. But how exactly can you achieve this?
Here are 3 steps to help you out:
1. Collect and Segregate
The very first step involves waste collection and segregation. This practice is quite important to make sure that hazardous and non-hazardous waste won’t get mixed up with each other.
This can be achieved by using the right containers that are color-coded to let people know which are hazardous and which are not. Here are the most common color codes use for waste segregation:
- Red for sharps
- Red with a biohazard symbol for infectious waste
- Blue for pharmaceutical waste
- Yellow for chemotherapy waste
- Black for hazardous waste
- Yellow with a biohazard symbol for radioactive waste
2. Store and Transport
The next step is to contact a medical waste disposal company that will store and transport your hospital medical waste. Typically, waste is stored in a secure facility far from public access. Such facility is also far from food and water sources to further minimize the risk of contamination.
3. Disposal and Treatment
The final step is to safely dispose of the waste. This can be achieved via various methods such as incineration, autoclave chambers, and medical waste shredders.
However, the method used will depend on the type of medical waste.