There are a lot of reasons why medical wastes should be taken care of properly, especially in healthcare facilities such as in medical clinics and hospitals. But since not all healthcare facilities have someone they could rely on in managing medical wastes, most of them hire a pharmaceutical waste service in Missouri.
So aside from managing, segregating, treating, and disposing of these wastes, there are reasons why medical waste disposal is important.
A Large Portion of Medical Waste Materials are Dangerous
In medical wastes, there are four various kinds of it. There’s infectious medical waste, general waste, hazardous waste, and radioactive waste. General waste refers to the kind of trash and garbage that you usually find in households, and it usually makes up about 80% of the waste that is produced by healthcare activities. However, 20% of medical waste is still a lot for the environment.
All healthcare facilities produce about 2 million tons of surgical and medical wastes every year, which is broken down to about 5,500 tons of waste produced daily. Therefore, that’s about 1,100 tons of surgical and hospital waste, which is considered to be dangerous. And the majority of it is an anatomic and infectious waste.
It Could Pose a Huge Threat to the Health of People
If surgical and hospital wastes are mishandled, people could get infected, sick, hurt, or in rare cases, kills them. Every year, about 16 billion injections are conducted across the world, but not all of them are disposed of properly. According to the World Health Organization’s estimate, about 260,000 of new HIV infections were related to syringes and needles that aren’t properly disposed of.
It Could Negatively Affect the Environment
The reason why Pharmaceutical Waste Services – Medical & Biohazardous Waste Disposal in Missouri is important is that, if the surgical and hospital wastes aren’t handled correctly, it could end up severely damaging is the environment. Not only would it badly affect the people, but animals as well especially for those who scavenge for food in garbage bins.
One of the most common methods of disposing pharmaceutical wastes is by incinerating them. Although it works quite well in disposing of contaminated waste materials, it can actually pollute our environment when not done correctly.
In fact, during the crisis of the Ebola virus, the healthcare facilities have been warned not to use incinerators when getting rid of the produced surgical and hospital wastes, as the burning materials could release some chemicals into the air and pollute the environment. But since there was a huge amount of medical waste that is produced by Ebola, the nation was forced to incinerate them.
So, with that said, these are the reasons why it’s important to segregate and properly dispose of all medical waste in Missouri, as it would help prevent the cause of health and environment problems in the future. Therefore, all healthcare facilities should always look for a medical waste management service, which could help segregate and dispose of the waste they produce every day.