Benefits of Medical Garbage Segregation 

Do you want to get familiar with the ways to segregate medical waste disposal? Willing to know the benefits of medical garbage segregation? 

If yes, this is the right article for you! 

If we categorize biomedical garbage, they are subdivided into different categories. Due to their nature, it’s impossible to dispose of them all in the same place. So, we need to understand that segregating the garbage of medical fields as per their nature is really important. 

Those who work in healthcare administration need to understand the importance of a clean environment. It’s only possible with the right waste disposal method. Moreover, we need to maintain a good groundwork to carry out the day-to-day work in an efficient manner. 

Healthcare garbage segregation leads to maintaining a good environment for health sector professionals and patients. As a result, the patient’s trust in these facilities will increase. They’ll feel safe, secure, and clean within the health sector environment. 

In this article, we’ll get familiar with the term biomedical garbage segregation, its types, and its significance. So, let’s get started! 

What is Medical Garbage Segregation? 

In simple words, we can understand medical garbage segregation as the process of separating the garbage based on its nature. You can categorize the waste on the source (where it is disposed) to carry out the further process.

In some countries and cities, you can see the usage of color waste receptacles to categorize the waste. Let’s get familiar with them! 

Yellow:

Here, you can see clinical or highly infectious waste. 

Red:

Contains anatomical biomedical waste like blood, body parts, and organs. 

Black:

You can dispose of medical or non-clinical waste over here. 

White:

You may find only dental waste in this waste receptacle. 

Orange:

You can dispose of clinical or infectious waste here. 

Blue:

Here, you can find unused medicines or drugs disposed of. 

Purple:

You can dispose of cytostatic or cytotoxic products like chemotherapy medicines over here. 

If your healthcare follows the proper biomedical waste segregation, it will result in an improved environment and human health. Not only humans but proper waste management facilitates wildlife and aquatic life. 

Types of Medical Waste Segregation

Here, we’ve listed four major types of biomedical waste segregation. You need to understand that every single type has its own disposal needs and requirements. So, we’d suggest you get familiar with these terms to make the right segregation decisions. 

Non-Infectious Waste:

You can simply understand non-infectious waste as a waste that’s not risky. Around 85% of the waste produced in hospitals is non-infectious. They can be disposed of like general household waste. For example, medication boxes, food waste, packages, and more. 

Infectious Waste:

If you see waste that is contaminated with blood, disposals of laboratory work, bandages, and swabs, it is an infectious waste. As it is hazardous, you need to pay attention while disposing of them. 

Highly Infectious Waste:

Highly infectious waste is a subset of infectious waste that includes waste that is critical for our health. The substances disposed of here have a high risk of infection transmission. For example, HIV-infected materials, COVID-19-contaminated materials, etc. 

Sharp Waste:

In sharp waste, you can find sharp objects like syringes, needles, scalps, razors, broken glasses, and more. If you don’t handle or dispose of it with care, it might result in some serious accidents. So, you need to be careful while disposing of sharp waste. 

Benefits of Biomedical Garbage Segregation

You’ll get enormous benefits from biomedical garbage segregation. If you do it properly, following all procedures, it’ll save you money and create a healthier environment. 

Let’s get familiar with some of its benefits! 

Proper Waste Management Cost 

If you’re the owner of a healthcare facility, you need to understand that segregation will help you determine the waste volume. Then, you can reduce medical waste disposal costs. 

You might wonder how. It’s possible because around 85% of waste that’s produced is non-hazardous, and the remaining 15% is hazardous. You can dispose the 85% of waste with the normal cost of household waste disposal. This way, you’ll be able to save your money. 

Improves Safety

If your biomedical waste is not disposed of properly, waste like sharps, vaccines, scalps, and needles can cause accidents. Not only that, the chemicals of biomedical garbage lead to different viruses and bacteria that cause serious health issues. 

So, to eradicate all these risks, you need to maintain proper safety procedures. 

Controls Negative Impact on the Environment

We’d suggest you segregate and dispose of biomedical garbage in the right way to prevent soil pollution, water pollution, land pollution, and global warming. 

If you don’t do so, it will degrade the environment. As a result, we’ll see some negative impacts on the health of aquatic life, human beings, and wildlife. 

You can hear in the news that a lot of animals eat plastic, which causes their instant death. A lot of aquatic plants and animals are on the verge of extinction due to the pollution in water. However, all these impacts can be minimized through proper disposal of biomedical and other waste. 

Also read: How To Manage Clinical And Related Waste?

Efficient Disposal of Waste

You can do efficient disposal of waste after the segregation in the following ways: 

• Labeling on the basis of color coding will help you understand which waste belongs where in an easy way. 
• After you segregate the waste, you can pack biomedical waste easily. 
• You can dispose of the waste with proper transportation and safe handling. 
• You’ll be able to dispose of waste properly as per the rules, regulations, and compliance.
  

Conservation of Resources 

You can conserve resources if you properly follow the biomedical garbage segregation procedure. It is possible, as it’ll help you to take the necessary actions. As a result, you’ll be able to live in an environment with no land, water, and air pollution. This will result in the conservation of natural resources. 

Conclusion 

We’d suggest you not mix all the biomedical waste in the same place. Instead, you can segregate it based on its nature, or else it will harm you. Some of the negative impacts are health hazards, destruction of natural resources, extinction of wildlife, and more. 

The best solution to control all these negative effects is to segregate medical garbage based on its nature before disposing of it. It will bring efficiency, save you money, and create a safe and clean environment. 

However, we’d suggest you follow some precautions before beginning your segregation process.

We wish you all the best in doing the proper medical garbage segregation! 

SAHIL BATRA

Hi, I’m the Founder and Developer of Paramedics World, a blog truly devoted to Paramedics. I am a Medical Lab Tech, a Web Developer and Bibliophiliac. My greatest hobby is to teach and motivate other peoples to do whatever they wanna do in life.