Alternative Ways of Medical Waste Management
Municipal Solid Waste, more commonly known as trash or garbage, is generated by humans in enormous amount daily. However, in the early times, solid waste management did not cause a significant problem as today due to the lower population and larger amount of available space for disposal. In the recent decades, the growing human population, shorter product lifespan, usage of primary and secondary packaging, and mass production of materials have made solid waste into a less manageable problem. Approximately 3.53 million tons of municipal solid waste is generated each day globally. Researchers have been trying to develop methods such as Waste-to-Energy and modern landfilling to recycle and recover these waste materials in more efficient and proper ways (Nakamura, 2016).
One of the highly hazardous kinds of Municipal Solid Waste is medical waste, which is generated from hospitals and clinics. Medical waste is dangerous because it can lead to disease outbreak if treated improperly. It involves an even more difficult collection and disposal process, and the cost is much higher than that of other kinds of Municipal Solid Waste. There are unnecessary casualties and property loss during the collection process every year. More attention has been paid to the treatment of medical waste during recent years. In China, the amount of medical waste generated is growing by approximately 10 million tons per year from 2011 to 2014 (Table 1) (He and Fang, 2016). Stricter legislations were enacted in China to prevent the situation from deteriorating (Zhang et al., 2013). For instance, Chinese legislations demands that medical waste needs to be recovered within 48 hours. Researchers also found a more efficient way to transport medical waste from several hospitals and clinics to the disposal site. The optimization path decreases the total distance that the medical waste company has to travel, thus making the procedure more efficient and less dangerous (He and Fang, 2016).
Table 1. The amount of medical waste during 2006-2014 in China; Table taken from He and Fang, 2016.
Figure 1. Medical waste recycling and disposal process: collection, transportation, and disposal. Figure taken from He and Fang, 2016
Tissue engineering is another way of reducing medical waste. Organ transplantation is a highly complicated process and can generate a lot of medical wastes during the operation. Untreated medical wastes can create infections and contamination during the treatment process. Tissue Engineering such as scaffold can replace organ transplantation. A recent preliminary research at the New York City College of Technology focuses on tissue engineering for reducing medical waste. A group of researchers investigates the different scaffold fabrication techniques and their environmental impact. Scaffold fabrication aims to reduce the shortage of right donor organ and prevent transplant rejection and pathogen transference. Dr. Ozlem Yasar compared the four methods of scaffold fabrication (Heat, Adhesives, Light, and Molding- Based Fabrication) by looking at their toxicity, energy consumption, and material cost. It was found that Mold-Based Fabrication has the lowest energy consumption, toxicity, and material cost on average. This technique involves casting the polymer solution on a 3D-prototype and removing the mold to get the scaffold (Yasar et al., 2016).
Moreover, scaffolds can even allow wounds to repair. The new TiO2/COL-CS porous scaffold is a promising candidate that allows damaged tissues to grow back by providing a sterile environment. The addition of nano-TiO2 will form additional hydrogen bonds with collagen and chitosan, acting as a bridge between the molecular chains to increase the density of the mesh structure (Fan et al., 2016).
More and more people are emphasizing more on health sanitization and medical waste treatment during the past decades. Some of the medical wastes generated during operation process can now be replaced by tissue engineering, and thus reducing contamination and infections. Scaffold fabrication method and optimization path are found to improve medical waste management issues.
Literature Cited
He, Z., Li, Q., Fang., J. (2016). The solutions and recommendations for logistic problems in the collection of medical waste in China. School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China.
Nakamura, M. (2016). Municipal Solid Waste. Environmental Sci. & Eng. Vol 5. New York City College of Technology.
Fan, X., Chen, K., He, X., Li, N., Huang, J., Tang, K., Li, Y., Wang, F. (2016). Nano-TiO2/collagen-chitosan porous scaffold for wound repairing. College of Materials Science & Engineering-Zhengzhou University, and the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.
Zhang, H.J., Zhang, Y.H., Wang, Y., Yang, Y.H., Zhang, J., Wang, Y.L., Wang, J.L. (2013). Investigation of medical waste management in Gansu province, China. School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou.
Yasar, O., Nakamura, M., Tam, J. (2016). Investigation of Scaffold Fabrication Techniques: Tissue Engineering for Reducing Medical Waste and the Environmental Impacts. New York City College of Technology.
