CLEAN AIR WASTE INCINERATION IN A 6000 BEDS TEACHING HOSPITALS COMPLEX

摘要

In typical Teaching hospitals in Egypt and elsewhere, nurses generate a lot of medical waste during their normal workday; almost every activity a nurse performs, from inserting a Foley to starting an IV, creates a substantial amount of medical waste. As the job complexity, workload and the use of disposables have increased, so has the amount of medical waste coming from a hospital. This amount had doubled in the past four decades per hospital patient. Generally, roughly 10 to 15 % of hospital waste is classified as "infectious." Infectious waste is "red bagged" and requires special treatment to protect the health of the community. The present work addresses the medical waste of a 6000 beds complex of teaching Hospitals that forms the main campus of Cairo University, Faculty of Medicine. Waste material from different Teaching hospitals within the campus are daily collected and loaded into either of the two double chamber incinerators .Each incinerator is capable of 10 hours operations daily at 150 kg/hr, followed by 5 hours of cool down to collect ash, typically for 7 days a week. The present work compares the incinerator's behaviour and the thermal cycle patterns for varied mixes of medical wastes from different specialized hospitals including maternity, paediatric, general and emergency hospitals. Measurements and records over a one year period of gas flow rates, gas temperatures in the various chambers and gas analyses are reported and critically analyzed, together with waste batch mix compositions (plastics, infectious and pathological mix and sharps). It should be emphasised that although incineration is basically being phased out in the USA and Europe, third world countries are endeavouring to improve the adverse environmental impact of burning by using efficient and clean incineration which minimize the emissions of dioxins and mercury. Thus, most medical waste can be, alternatively, managed using the same waste minimization, segregation and recycling techniques used in homes and offices. Alternative non-burn methods of sterilization of infectious waste - I.e. autoclaving, micro waving, and other technologies are encouraged. The paper addresses this issue in terms of available technologies and recourses.