There are various industrial sectors, whether product or service related, in which humans are making tremendous success and they are achieving many milestones. But, unfortunately, along with all the facilities, which we are generating for ourselves, we are also contributing to a major problem for us day by day. We are talking about the various industrial wastes, which we are producing through our various industrial sectors. No doubt, the emergence of municipal solid waste incinerator has made things a bit manageable, but there is a long way to go. Although waste originated from each of the industrial sector is dangerous for the environment, but biomedical waste can be considered as one of the most hazardous wastes. Many people are not even aware of what biomedical waste is and how it is impacting our environment in a bad way. Today, in this post, we are going to tell you what biomedical waste is, what its ill effects are, and how we can deal with it. So, without any further delay, let’s get started.
- What is biomedical waste?
Biomedical waste can be defined as the waste, which is created during the treatment of a condition or disease of the patient or during the immunization of any humans or animals. It also includes any waste originating from any biological testing or any research activity. Thus, the waste material originating from such activities may have infectious properties. For example, syringes which are used to deliver medications or chemotherapy. They can be found in bandages, bedding or patient’s clothing soiled with blood or other body fluids of a person, who may be infected with a communicable disease.
- Effects of the biomedical waste
Following are the various effects of the biomedical waste. These are:
- Can cause various infections: If the biomedical waste is not properly disposed of, then it may cause various kinds of infections to the humans. These infections may be chronic and may cause death also to the infected persons.
- May affect animals also: It may be possible if biomedical waste is not properly managed, then it may be thrown in open, which could possibly be ingested by stray animals, thus leading to many dangerous results to them or even death.
- May contaminate the environmental resources: Many municipalities in many countries, due to the lack of proper resources, dispose of the biomedical waste through landfilling. This obviously makes the land’s upper layer contaminated and the toxins from the upper layer may also flow with the help of rainwater to the groundwater resources, thus making it also polluted.
There are many other harmful effects of biomedical waste which needs to be avoided.
- Ways of managing the biomedical waste
The above discussed ways make it crucial to manage the biomedical waste in the most responsible manner. Traditionally, many methods for the disposal of biomedical waste have been adopted, but the most impactful method is the incineration only. Incineration is a powerful thermal treatment method which by using a combustion technology converts the solid waste material into some ash or flue gases. It reduces the body mass of the solid waste by more than 95 percent. Nowadays, many specialized biomedical hospital incinerator are used in the hospitals and by some municipality corporations also.
