The environmental situation of the ash medical waste in Baghdad city, Iraq

Abstract

The paper presents and discusses medical waste issues (including the hazardous ones 15%) and their proper management in Iraq. Hence, improper handling of infectious medical waste endangers human health and the environment. Incineration is considered one of the effective ways to dispose of medical waste, especially in the time of Coronavirus (COVID-19) can eliminate all pathogens, reduce waste weight by more than 60-75% by weight and reduce volume accordingly. But that goes with ◌ِ a large quantities of heavy metals and reactive, toxic materials produced, which are throws in municipal in the landfill area. That causes pollution of the soil, groundwater and air as a result of its light flying ash. The only disposal method available in Iraq is incineration in purpose-built incinerators. This paper examined three incineration processes for three hospitals in Bagdad; Medical City Complex, Al-Amal National Hospital and Al Shifa coronavirus Hospital, and we worked on burning waste and analyzing ash. The results were that most of the waste after incineration had high heavy mineral concentrations and a small amount of other materials.