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Health Hazards of Medical Waste and its Disposal 105

Table 8.3 Methods to sort waste
S. No Types of waste Color-coding symbol Type of container
1 Household refuse Black Plastic bag
2 Sharps Sharps container
Yellow and
3A Waste entailing Plastic bag or
a risk of Yellow and container
contamination
3B Anatomical waste Plastic bag or
Yellow and container
3C Infectious waste Yellow and “highly Plastic bag or
container which
infectious” and can be autoclaved
4 Chemical and Brown, Marked with Plastic bag or
pharmaceutical suitable symbol. E.g., container
waste

Radioactive waste: such as products contaminated by radionuclides in-
cluding radioactive diagnostic material or radiotherapeutic materials; and
Nonhazardous or general waste: waste that does not pose any par-
ticular biological, chemical, radioactive, or physical hazard.
High-income countries generate on average up to 0.5 kg of hazardous
waste per bed per day; while low-income countries generate on average
0.2 kg. However, health-care waste is often not separated into hazardous or
nonhazardous wastes in low-income countries making the real quantity of
hazardous waste much higher.

8.3.4 Types of Hazards

Exposure to hazardous health-care waste can result in disease or injury.
The hazardous nature of health-care waste may be due to one or more
of the following characteristics:
• It contains infectious agents;
• It is genotoxic;
• It contains toxic or hazardous chemicals or pharmaceuticals;
• It is radioactive;
• It contains sharps.
The term health-care waste includes all the waste generated within
health-care facilities, research centers, and laboratories related to medical
procedures. In addition, it includes the same types of waste originating from