Page 117 - Energy from Toxic Organic Waste for Heat and Power Generation

Health Hazards of Medical Waste and its Disposal 101

▪ Monitoring, sorting, collection, storage and transport procedures in the
various wards.
▪ Monitoring protective measures.
▪ Supervising the hospital hygiene and taking measures to control
infection.

8.2.5 Duties of the Chief Pharmacist
The chief pharmacist is responsible for:
▪ Maintaining medicine stocks and minimizing expired stock.
▪ Managing waste containing mercury.
▪ In the absence of the pharmacist, the hospital administrator takes over
these responsibilities.

8.2.6 Duties of the Head of Laboratory
The head of laboratory is responsible for:
▪ Maintaining the stock of chemicals and minimizing chemical wastes.
▪ Managing chemical wastes.

8.3 CATEGORIES OF HEALTH-CARE WASTE
8.3.1 Major Sources (Hospitals and Medical Centers)
See Tables 8.1 and 8.2.

8.3.2 Methods to Sort Waste
The simplest way to identify the different types of waste and to encourage
people to sort them is to collect the various types of waste in separate con-
tainers or plastic bags that are color-coded and/or marked with a symbol.
The international recommendations are given in Table 8.3.
8.3.3 Types of Waste

Waste and by-products cover a diverse range of materials, as the following
list illustrates:
Infectious waste: waste contaminated with blood and other bodily
fluids (e.g., from discarded diagnostic samples), cultures and stocks of
infectious agents from laboratory work (e.g., waste from autopsies and
infected animals from laboratories), or waste from patients in isolation
wards and equipment (e.g., swabs, bandages, and disposable medical
devices);
Pathological waste: human tissues, organs or fluids, body parts, and
contaminated animal carcasses;