Bio-medical Waste Incinerator Ash: a Review with Special Focus on Its Characterization, Utilization and Leachate Analysis

Waste generation has increased considerably worldwide in the last few decades. Solid wastes encompass the heterogeneous mass of throwaways from the urban community as well as the homogeneous accumulations of agricultural, industrial and mineral wastes. Waste generated from biomedical activities represents a real problem of living nature and human world. A proper waste management system should be required to dispose hazardous biomedical waste and incineration should be the best available technology to reduce the volume of this hazardous waste. The incineration process destroys pathogens and reduces the waste volume and weight but leaves a solid material called biomedical waste incineration ash as residue which increases the levels of heavy metals, inorganic salts and organic compounds in the environment. Disposal of biomedical waste ash in landfill without proper treatment may cause contamination of groundwater due to leachate as metals are not destroyed during incineration. The limited space and the high cost for land disposal led to the development of recycling technologies and the reuse of ash in different systems. In order to minimize leaching of its hazardous components into the environment several studies confirmed the successful utilization of biomedical waste ash in agriculture and as structural and constructional material. This paper presents the overview of some of the research published on the beneficial use of ash in agriculture and construction materials and its leachate characteristics. This review also stressed on the need to further evaluate other suitable ways of disposing and utilizing the ashes and slag generated from biomedical waste incinerators.