Here is an essay on ‘Biomedical Waste Management’ for class 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Biomedical Waste Management’ especially written for school and college students.
Essay on Biomedical Waste Management
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Essay Contents:
- Essay on the Introduction to Biomedical Waste Management
- Essay on the Nature and Quantum of Hospital Wastes
- Essay on the Knowledge of the Risk
- Essay on the Source Separation and Waste Segregation
- Essay on the Waste Minimization Methods
Essay # 1. Introduction to Biomedical Waste Management:
Hospitals and other health-care establishments have a ‘duty of care’ for the environment and for public health, and have particular responsibilities in relation to the waste they produce. Unfortunately, medical wastes are not given proper attention and these wastes are disposed of together with municipal and industrial solid wastes.
Every hospital must possess a tailor-made waste disposal policy for itself, constituted by the intelligentsia-nominees of the administration. The ‘3 R’ principle of reduce; reuse and recycle should be the basis for good management practices.
Biomedical waste (BMW) means any waste, which is generated during the diagnosis, treatment or immunization of human beings or animals or in research activities pertaining thereto or in the production or testing of biologicals, and including categories of BMW (Management and Handling) (Second Amendment) Rules, 2000 by Ministry of Environment and Forests Notification; Biologicals means any preparation made from organisms or micro-organisms or product of metabolism and biochemical reactions intended for use in the diagnosis, immunization or the treatment of human beings or animals or in research activities pertaining thereto.
Infectious wastes include all those medical wastes, which have the potential to transmit viral, bacterial or parasitic diseases. It includes both human and animal infectious waste and waste generated in laboratories, and veterinary practice. Infectious waste is hazardous in nature. Any waste with a potential to pose a threat to human health and life is called hazardous waste. However, if the infectious component gets mixed with the general non-infectious waste, the entire bulk of waste becomes potentially infectious.
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This becomes all the more important in a situation peculiar to a developing country like India where poverty and ignorance induce many persons to sift and sort through dumped waste to make a living out of recyclables thus being exposed to danger of contracting diseases from hazardous components of waste. By hospital wastes, it means especially the bio-medical wastes generated in different departments of the hospitals.
Biomedical waste—a term that is more appropriate than infectious waste, because there is no safe and simple method to test waste for infectiousness. The term waste management is used rather than waste disposal because our discussion is much broader than just the disposal process.
For waste management to be efficient, the waste should be managed at every step – from acquisition of materials that eventually become waste, to waste generation, discard, collection, containment, handling, accumulation, storage, transport, treatment, and finally disposal. ‘Disposal’ refers to the final disposition of waste or waste treatment products, such as placement in a landfill. Thus, management must extend from ‘cradle to the groove’—that is, from the point of generation to ultimate disposal.
Essay # 2. Nature and Quantum of Hospital Wastes
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Three major categories of health care facilities existing in India are:
(i) Outpatient Clinics or Dispensaries:
This category constitutes the largest number of clinics or dispensaries in the private sector; subcentres manned by the Female Health workers and primary health care centres (PHCs) in the rural areas and dispensaries, mobile dispensaries, health and family welfare posts providing outpatient care in government sector.
(ii) Outpatient and Inpatient Care Hospitals:
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The network of Community Health Centres with 30 or more beds is the most important peripheral health facility that provides inpatients care in rural areas in public sector. Small nursing homes in private sector also provide inpatient as well as outpatient care in peripheral rural areas.
The next tier of hospitals ranges from sub-divisional and district hospitals, medical college hospitals to specialty hospitals in public sector. Similar hospitals in private sector provide both inpatient and outpatient care.
It is estimated that in most of the health care settings, about 85% of the waste generated is non- hazardous, about 10% is infectious wastes and 5% non-infectious but hazardous waste. It is estimated that the quantity of waste generated from hospitals in India ranges from 1-2 kg/bed/day.
Waste generated in developing countries contains much less disposable articles and plastics than waste generated in developed countries, the differences are partly due to differences in use of disposables in health care and partly due to life styles of the population.
Essay # 3. Knowledge of the Risk
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The potential for infections from contact with non-sharp medical waste is virtually nonexistent. The only medical waste that has been associated with infectious diseases transmission is contaminated sharps. Obviously, this potential for transmission exists when infectious sharps are mishandled and are not properly discarded or contained. The rising trends of HBV and HIV infection in the community and among health care providers has led to an increasing awareness about the risk associated with this lackadaisical practice.
WHO has estimated that, in 2000, injections with contaminated syringes caused:
i. 21 million hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections (32% of all new infections);
ii. Two million hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections (40% of all new infections); and
iii. 2,60,000 HIV infections (5% of all new infections).
Best evidence from prospective studies with aggressive monitoring suggests that the incidence of needle stick injuries is significantly higher than reported through passive surveillance, ranging from 14 to 839 needle stick injuries per 1,000 health care workers per year. The economic cost of managing these injuries is substantial, ranging from 51$ to 3,766$ (2002 US$).
This amount excludes the cost of treating the long-term complications of needle stick injuries, such as HIV and hepatitis B and C infections, each of which can cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars to manage. Another potential health risk for medical waste handlers is physical injury due to handling heavy and cumbersome waste containers. Physical and health hazards are also associated with the high operating temperatures of incinerators and steam sterilizers and with toxic gases vented into the atmosphere after waste treatment.
Multi-hazardous waste includes waste that is infectious and that contains radionuclides and/or hazardous chemicals. An example is waste contaminated with blood or body fluids and with a chemotherapy drug. Multi-hazardous waste is best managed and treated separately from other infectious waste. It should be noted that mercury thermometers are not infectious waste, and they should not be classified and managed as such. All unwanted or broken mercury thermometers should be managed and disposed of as hazardous chemical waste.
They should never be placed in sharps containers. Because mercury is a component of dental amalgam, comprising about 50 per cent of amalgam among other metals, in recent years the concern has affected dental practices and even educational curricula in the dental schools. Both the California Dental Association and the American Dental Association have developed recommendations for best practice that dental offices should follow when handling dental amalgam waste.
Elements and consecutive steps of the biomedical waste management plan are:
Essay # 4. Source Separation and Waste Segregation
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Source separation of waste means separating, at the point of generation and discard, wastes with distinct characteristics into separate waste streams (such as infectious waste, radioactive waste, etc.). Separation is usually accomplished by using different and distinct waste collection containers for each type of waste. Such separation is best done when materials are discarded as waste (at the point of waste generation), because the person who discards the waste is generally most knowledgeable about its nature.
Brief instructions at the point of discard (e.g., posted about the waste container) facilitate compliance with source separation, as does placing containers for the different waste types as close as possible to the point of waste generation. Waste segregation means keeping waste streams separate from the point of generation through collection and handling, accumulation, storage, transport, and treatment. For source separation and waste segregation to be successful there must be an explicit label on each bag and shall be non-washable and prominently visible.
Choice of Bins or Receptacles:
Hospital managers may prefer to use plastic or metal bins for waste storage in order to save on the cost and paperwork of buying large number of on-strip sacs. However, since the cost of hospital waste management is found to be significantly less than 1% of the hospital budget in many cases, the small saving by not providing facilities for waste storage may be regarded insignificant. The extra expenditure involved in buying plastic bags is justified by improved hygiene, hospital infection control and convenience in disposal.
Essay # 5. Waste Minimization Methods
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Waste minimization is an important aspect of medical waste management. This importance derives from a variety of considerations including regulatory requirements to reduce and to minimize the quantities of wastes generated, cost savings that can be realized when smaller quantities of waste must be managed and disposed of as medical waste, cost savings that can be realized when some wastes are reused or recycled, increased environmental awareness by the institution and its employees and institutional concerns about community relations.
Source reduction means reducing the quantities of waste generated. One approach is through strict definition of waste type accompanied by source separation for the different waste streams. Source reduction is also achieved by product substitution, that is, the substitution of products that generate less waste. One example in the hospital setting is the use of devices such as needle less intravenous systems that reduce sharps generation and protect healthcare workers from exposure to blood-borne pathogens.
This is to be noted that the reverse happened with auto-disable syringes that resulted in greatly increased volumes of used injection materials—200 times as much as those of sterilizable syringes. Though India is planning to use the auto-disable syringes, it is important to examine the flaws in their design too. Another example is the substitution of reusable items for the single-use items that gained wide acceptance, because they eliminated the need for on-site reprocessing.
Product substitution is also important in minimizing the quantities of chemical and radioactive wastes generated in various laboratory analyses like a fluorescent based method (Mycobacterial Growth Indicator Tube, MGIT) replacing the radioactive method (BACTEC) for the rapid diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Recycling reduces the quantities of wastes generated by reusing certain materials, with or without prior reprocessing, rather than discarding them.
Other wastes that lend themselves to recycling are solvents, packaging materials, paper and aluminium cans. Many solvents can be redistilled for reuse. An alternative approach for some solvents is incineration with heat recovery. Proper management is essential for implementation of a waste minimization program. The good management program includes an employee awareness program, employee training, purchasing strategies, and inventory control.