Environmental and health risks associated with biomedical waste management

摘要

Human beings are exposed to a huge variety of health risks over their entire life. This article is an attempt to prove that environmental and health risks and concerns are chained, and the fundamental premises for a systemic approach of biomedical waste management must be achieved. Since an important issue of environmental protection process is the biomedical waste management, this study focuses on responsible planning of collecting, transporting, processing and disposing of hazardous and non-hazardous biomedical waste, with a special concern on effective management of biomedical waste incorporating an appropriate waste reduction and neutralization component. An attempt has been made to critically review the current biomedical waste management practices followed by some Romanian hospitals. Following the rules and legislation of both Romania and European Union, the methods for segregation, packaging, labeling and the treatment techniques for reduction in volume, neutralization and final disposal of the biomedical waste are analyzed.