Medical waste. Ways of disposal

The processing of waste from various types of medical activities has recently acquired special significance, as new viruses and new diseases threatening the epidemic appear all the time. Medical waste liquid, solid, pasty form today is rendered harmless in a thermal manner at specialized enterprises. Disposal of most of it is carried out on the fire reactors of experimental production bases. Medical waste is a specialized waste stream that is regulated by government agencies. According to the Moscow region, for example, the annual load for the destruction of unusable drugs is more than one hundred tons. According to many experts, this indicator is not satisfactory.

The classification of medical wastes with an infectious danger is such that unfit chemically-toxic pharmaceutical products are divided into five categories according to scientifically-developed criteria: A, B, C, D and D.

Export of medical waste, as a rule, is carried out outside of cities to the settlements having at their disposal specialized enterprises for their processing.

According to the world practice, the most widely used was the thermal treatment using rotary drum furnaces. The technological scheme includes a whole complex: a drum furnace, a post-combustion chamber, a multi-stage system for cleaning smoke exhausts, a waste heat boiler. It should be noted that such complex units with liquid slag removal are considered the most versatile reactors used in the process of processing of unsuitable substances of large-lump type.

The most effective method of thermal neutralization is the fire (high-temperature) method.

Medical waste, organic compounds, chemically and epidemiologically dangerous, including under the influence of temperature, turn into harmless, but only if certain parameters (constructive and regime) are observed. To the integral criteria of the process include maintaining the temperature level, the specific load for the compounds to be disposed of, the necessary time for finding particles and gases in the high temperature zone, and so on.

It is necessary to say that medical waste is mostly neutralized in primitive furnaces and reactors. As a rule, these are aggregates of layer type.

Often, the equipment used in our country at the present time is characterized by rather low indicators for environmental friendliness, a small working resource and a relatively low intensity of the utilization process.

Experts note the existence of certain problems in the field of neutralization of unfit medical substances. First of all, it is connected with the change in the human population, the increasing interaction of people and pathogens, the creation of a qualitatively new environment, within which emergency situations often arise . There are also various technological problems. Of no small importance are the economic values of local facilities for high-temperature neutralization of waste of different classes.