The document discusses the role of an environmentalist in hospital waste management. It begins by defining an environmentalist and their responsibilities, which include identifying environmental hazards, developing solutions to protect the environment, and providing guidance to mitigate issues. It then discusses hospital waste, sources, types including infectious, pathological, pharmaceutical, sharp, and radioactive waste. Improper hospital waste management can lead to health and environmental concerns like water, air and soil pollution. The key steps in hospital waste management are generation, segregation, collection, storage, transportation, treatment, and final disposal. An environmentalist's role in hospitals is to implement waste regulations and ensure proper management of waste.

1. Environmentalist &
Hospital Waste
Management
Rohina Tabassam

2. Let the waste of
the “Sick” not
contaminate lives
of “The Healthy”

3. Environmentalist & Hospital Waste
Management
• Environmentalist
• Responsibilities OR Duties
• Hospital Waste Management
• Why we need an environmentalist in
Hospitals

4. Environmentalist
An expert on environmental problems. A person who work to
protect the natural world from pollution and other threats or
advocate the protection of the environment and other natural
resources. Give green ideas about the relationship between
society and nature
Environmental Specialists are experts who monitor the impact
of a population on the environment, identifying environmental
issues and recommending solutions. Their chief goal is to
improve the living conditions of the environment

5. What Does It Mean To Be An
Environmentalist?
• If you recycle, you are an environmentalist.
• If you are a vegetarian, you are an environmentalist.
• If you buy products not test on animals, you are an environmentalist. If you
eat one less meat dish a week with the planet in mind, you are an
environmentalist.
• In reality, if you care about leaving this world in a better condition than you
found it, you are an environmentalist.

6. Responsibilities of Environmentalist
• Environmental scientists identify hazards to the
environment or to the health of the earth's inhabitants in
hospital waste management
• Create solutions to protect the environment by eliminating
these hazards, or at least decreasing their harmful effects.
• Determine data collection methods, then collect and
analyze
• Conduct fieldwork to investigate the nature and extent

7. Responsibilities of Environmentalist
• Develop plans to prevent, control, or fix environmental
problems
• Perform program research, planning and development,
monitoring/inspections and technical support services for
waste management
• Provide guidance to the public, government organizations,
and businesses to mitigate environmental and health
hazards

8. Hospital Waste Management
• Hospital waste
• Sources of hospital waste
• Types of Hospital waste
• Health concerns due to improper HWM
• Environmental concerns due to improper HWM
• Steps in hospital waste management

9. Hospital waste
• waste generated by healthcare facilities like physician’s offices, hospitals,
dental practices, laboratories, medical research facilities, and veterinary
clinics
• Also known as medical waste, infectious waste, Biomedical Waste, Clinical
Waste, Biohazardous Waste, Regulated Medical Waste (RMW), Healthcare
waste
• Contaminated by any kind of pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, parasites or
fungi, include culture from laboratory work, waste from surgeries and
autopsies

10. Hospital waste
• Hospitals in Pakistan produce about 250,000 tons of waste per year
• Hospital waste has been reported to be poorly handled and managed by the hospital
staff and administration respectively
• This leads to environmental and health consequences within hospitals as well as to
outside population
• Only two hospital Allied and DHQ have facility of incinerator but they are
insufficient to handle waste
• almost all of the hospitals did not have practice of HCWM on their priority.
Segregation, handling, storage, transportation and disposal of waste were below
WHO and Pakistan bio-safety rules 2005 standards

11. Sources of Hospital Waste
• Governmental and private hospitals
• Nursing homes and dispensaries
• Autopsy and mortuary centers
• Physician’s and dentist offices
• Blood banks and collection centers
• Transfusion and dialysis centers
• Human or animal tissues created during procedures
• Cultures of infectious diseases/agents
• Discarded vaccines

12. Types of Hospital waste

13. Risk waste: Risk waste has the potential to cause any harm or injury
to the person when he comes in contact with it. also known as hazardous
waste
• Infectious waste
Denoted color orange

14. Risk waste
• Pathological waste
Denoted color Red

15. Risk waste
• Pharmaceutical waste
Denoted color Yellow
• Pharmaceutical waste is that type
of waste that includes unused,
expired, spilt and contaminated
pharmaceutical products such as
vaccines and drugs.

16. Risk waste
• Sharp waste
Sharps waste is that type of waste that can
cause cuts/puncture wounds on the body that
includes syringes, needles, broken ampoules,
blades, surgical aids, disposable scalpels and
this type of waste may be infected or not but
still are considered as the potential to cause
effects/severe damages because they are
highly dangerous

17. Risk waste
• Genotoxic / cytotoxic waste
• Bags also used
generated from drugs generally used in
oncology or radiotherapy units. These types
of wastes are highly dangerous because of
mutagenic, cytotoxic, teratogenic or
carcinogenic effects. It includes feces, vomit
or urine from patients treated with cytotoxic
drugs and their metabolites or genotoxic
chemicals

18. Risk waste
• radioactive waste
• Bags also used
Radioactive waste includes liquids, gas and
solids products contaminated by radio-
nuclides including radio-therapeutic material
or radioactive diagnostic materials and they
emit ionizing radiations which are very
harmful.

19. Risk waste
• Pressurized containers
Many surgical and medical aids are packaged
in pressurized containers. It includes inhaler
cans, full or emptied containers or aerosol
cans with pressurized gas, liquids or finely
powdered solid materials

20. Types of Hospital waste
• Non-risk waste
Non-risk waste is similar to the
normal domestic garbage and we
can call it as the waste that doesn’t
have greater risk. It is also known
as non-hazardous waste

21. Health concerns due to improper hospital
waste management

22. Environmental concerns due to improper
hospital waste management
• water pollution, air pollution, soil/land
pollution, radioactive pollution and
indirect effects on the health of other
organisms living in surrounding areas
• Incineration method is widely used for
the treatment of HW which releases
different types of hazardous pollutants in
the atmosphere/air such as dioxins,
furans which are well known
carcinogens

23. Environmental concerns due to improper
hospital waste management
• Improper waste disposal in landfills can
lead to escape of waste in to the
surrounded area which in results affects
the soil, surface and ground water
• That’s why it is the responsibility of
specific authorities to make disposal
landfills/ sites away from populated
areas, surface and ground water
resources

24. Steps in hospital waste management

25. Steps in hospital waste management
Waste generation
• Generation of waste differ/varies from hospital
to hospital and country to country. The wastes
generated from the health care
centers/hospitals are both hazardous and non-
hazardous waste

26. Waste segregation/separation
• Waste segregation means dividing
or separating waste as an earliest
opportunity at the point of origin.
The hazardous waste should not be
allowed to mix-up with the non-
hazardous waste
• These color codes vary from
hospital to hospital and country to
country.
Color coding for the
segregation of hospital waste
Steps in hospital waste management

27. Waste collection
• During waste collection, different
types of hospital wastes should be
collected separately. Centralized
sanitation staffs should collect the
waste and collectors must wear
protective materials
Waste storage
Steps in hospital waste management
• Waste store will be a room
/area/building within the health care
facility depending upon the quantity
and quality of waste production and
frequency of the waste collection.
Storage area should be inaccessible to
animals, insects and birds and it should
not be situated near the water bodies,
fresh food stores or food preparation
areas. Normally, waste should not be
stored more than 24 hours

28. Waste transportation
• Transportation of the waste from the
site of origin/collection to temporary
storage area is the next step in HWM.
Waste should be transported by
designated trolley, through the
designated route according to the time
schedule given by the specific
management authority. There should be
separate corridors/lift in hospitals to
carry and transport the waste.
Waste Treatment
Steps in hospital waste management

29. Final disposal
• final disposal first must consider that the
disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous
waste should be done separately. Hospital
wastes are disposed off either; openly or in
sanitary landfills or are safe deep burial.
• Land disposal/open dump
Hospital wastes are openly dumped but it
is not the safe method of disposal. Disposal
of waste should not be done around/on
open dumps
Final disposal
Steps in hospital waste management
• Sanitary landfills
Properly designed and managed landfills
should be utilized to prevent the
contamination of soil, surface, ground
water and direct contact with public.
• Safe deep burial
Hospital waste can be safe by deeply
burying it, but the burial site should be
lined with a material of low permeability
such as clay to prevent leakage.

30. Why we need an environmentalist in Hospitals
• Implement spill prevention programs and hazardous waste regulations
• Know about hazard standards & Biosafety measure
• Implementation of HWM Rules 2005 passed by Govt of Pakistan, Ministry of
Environment
• Improvement through HWM Guidelines and SOPs at District Level
• Better understanding of HWM

31. We are the last
Generation with real
Opportunity to save
the World