Recent Developments in Sustainable Management of Healthcare Waste and Treatment Technologies

Abstract

Management of healthcare waste has gained wide attention in the recent years. This work reviews recent sustainable management of healthcare waste practices, the importance of legalizations, role of clinical waste producing bodies, emerging management trends, and treatment technologies. Furthermore, waste generated in the treatment processes and the health and environmental impacts of recent technologies are also examined. Sustainable assessment of technologies, to this point, revealed that in often cases, autoclave assisted with shredder could be a better alternative for the treatment of hazardous healthcare wastes while landfilling of healthcare waste received the lowest ranking. Studies are required to consider more reliable assessment methods for treatment technologies. This work can serve educators, researchers, as well as all the medical staff from nurses to doctors and volunteers who tirelessly contribute to the society in keeping people away from many diseases including the current global pandemic outbreak due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 through the best and most sustainable practices in medical waste management.

Keywords

• healthcare waste treatment
• emerging technologies
• sustainability assessment
• environmental remediation
• international treaties
• education and training
• medical staff
• coronavirus (covid-19).