In order to maintain a high quality of life, we must address the importance of managing waste disposal. Waste disposal refers to the proper recycling and jettison of discarded or discharged material. There are different methods of handling unwanted products that have reached their end-of-life. Logistics plays an important role in the disposal of these materials. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the disposal methods of medical, electronic, and hazardous waste.
On average there are over 3.5 million tons of medical waste generated per year by the United States alone, according to reports in 2004. Medical waste, as classified by the World Health Organization, is waste that is generated in the diagnosis, treatment, or immunization of human beings or animals. If not properly disposed of, medical waste can cause risks for the healthcare personnel as well as the public. Logistics pays a role in planning, managing, and controlling the flow of medical waste until it is properly disposed of. Medical waste is segregated before disposal into different color bins and bags. The correct method of storage is also important. There is also a need for proper labeling, especially if the waste is hazardous.
The Medical Waste Management Program was established to protect the public and environment from potentially infectious diseases. According to the California Department of Public Health, the program regulates the generation, handling, storage, treatment, and disposal of
Containers for solid medical waste: Use red bags that are labeled with the words Biohazardous Waste or the universal biohazard symbol and the word Biohazard. Red bags must not contain chemotherapy waste.
Infectious waste is stored in yellow clinical bags, sharps are stored in a sharps container and household waste is stored in black bags. Each of these containers can only be filled up until they are 75% full at which point they must be closed and stored in a separate room prior to collection.
Hospital waste is one of the world’s growing problems. Hospitals on average produce 29 pounds of waste per staffed bed in just one day (2016). One of the reasons for medical waste is that a large amount disposable products used for sanitary reasons such as drapes, basins, and sponges (Conrardy J et al, 2009). However, new methods using reusable products in operating rooms have provided a means to decrease the regulated medical waste generated by an average of 65% (Conrardy J et al, 2009). Even if the hospital bureaucracy is unconcerned with the environment. These changes reduce the cost of waste disposal (Conrardy J et al, 2009). On the social side of progress, nonprofits like Practice Greenhealth provide sources for environmental solutions for the health care sector. At the hospital’s request, they can send information packets to help inform hospital staff on more environmental purchases such as the “Less Waste member-only toolkit”
The Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005 forbids the mixing of different types of hazardous waste (medication, needles and gloves), and the mixing of hazardous waste with non-hazardous waste in health care settings. This means that health care settings will need at least two containers, one for ‘hazardous waste and one for ‘Non-hazardous. It’s classed an offence if health care settings don’t follow the rules when getting rid of hazardous waste. This regulation also states that when people don’t need their medication they should be returning it them the pharmacy instead of disposing them in the bin.
SUPPORTING INFECTION AND PREVENTION AND CONTROL ON SOCIAL CARE ASSESSMENT CRITERIA 1. Explain how infection prevention policies and guidelines can be applied in own working settings Infection prevention policies and guidelines can be applied by • Providing information that is recent on how to prevent infections. Training staff regularly and making regular supervision relating to health and infection. • Providing the right equipment at all time for staff and service users can go a long way to prevent infection. Also making sure the proper sterilizing of scissors, urine bottles……… • Proper disposal of material used for service users.
dispose properly of leftover drugs which can be hazardous to the environment and not allowing
The hospital provides a slew of services to the community like acute hospitals, community hospitals, continuum care facilities, home-health agencies, ambulatory sites, and specialty institutes. If I was a part of the management of this organization my approach to managing supplies successfully will be to ensure the hospital
Allied Medical Waste Tracking Inc. was started to solve the problem of the dangers of improper disposal of medical waste. The intention of the company was clear and the results were supported by the Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988. This act demanded that all health institutions find a way to dispose of their medical waste. The consequences for failing to comply were fines imposed by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. Medical facilities were required to have a way of managing infectious waste. Some standards were put in place to make sure that the facilities did not compromise the well being of the environment. There are impacts on human health and the
A violent epidemic rapidly spreading across the world, the AIDS virus has forced doctors and healthcare professionals alike to take extensive measures when handling anything possibly contaminated. Furthermore, the Halsey Health Products line of sharps disposal containers are a necessity for hospitals across the country making up an annual market demand of 109 million containers sold. Dealing with such a potentially dangerous threat of infection the strength and reliability of sharps containers must surpass any federal standards and should be able to withstand all conditions. In addition, the integrity of this product is a key factor for the Halsey Corporation as it comprises a significant share of the targeted $900 million in sales.
The primary concern when disposing of nuclear waste and cleaning the facilities that produce it is the duration of half-lives of the elements that make up nuclear waste. One example is Uranium-235, which is used widely by nations that have a nuclear weapons program. U-235 has a half-life of 703,800,000 years. This means that U-235 will take over 700 million years for it to decompose by half. It is estimated that these elements will still be hazardous for ten times their half-lives. At this rate, U-235 will take around 7 billion years for it to become non-threatening to humans. It should be noted that seasons, temperature, or any known solvents will not affect the rate of decay. During the Cold War, very little attention was paid to the high volume of radioactive waste generated and even less to its effects on the environment. U-235 is an extreme example, we still have to contend with low level radioactive waste produced daily by Industry and Medical facilities. Some of the effects on the environment are; groundwater contamination, soil contamination, buried soil and water containing waste, and underground disposal facilities storing large volumes of hazardous, radioactive waste. One such facility was the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, which was designated in 1987 by the NWPA Amendments, and located on federal land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in Nye County, Nevada some 80 miles Northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Congress approved the site in 2002,
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Maintaining labeled prescription bottles and other PHI in opaque bags in a secure area and using a disposal vendor as a business associate to pick up and shred or otherwise destroy the PHI. For PHI on electronic media, clearing (using software or hardware products to overwrite media with non-sensitive data), purging (degaussing or exposing the media to a strong magnetic field in order to disrupt the recorded magnetic domains), or destroying the media (disintegration, pulverization, melting, incinerating, or shredding).” (HHS.gov,
Then the pharmacist can destroy the drugs after denatured and rendered unusable (using soapy water or another suitable vehicle) to make a slurry before disposal. Narcotics and controlled drugs returned by patients should be kept in a secure location until they are destroyed.
Hazardous waste and its proper disposal have become a major sociological problem today due to its capability of contaminating the area in which we live and its potential to be lethal to all living things. In order for the United States and the rest of the world to save itself from a potentially life threatening problem they must fix the causes which lead to the improper disposal of hazardous wastes and like materials. Some reasons that hazardous waste has become a problem in the United States today is due to the breakdown in enforcing laws for the proper disposal of such wastes, a lack of initiative on big companies behalf to spend money on proper disposal, and the ease of disposing of such wastes illegally.
The Generation of hazardous waste by the human activities increase the risk of the damage to the environment and the human health. These create a very negative impact if not disposed properly. In the state of Illinois the implementation of the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is referred to as hazardous waste. This act consists of the changes to the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1956 and signed into the law of 1976. The regulations related to the implementation of