This paper presents an experimental study of the heating value of medical waste using an input-output method. The study was carried out at the Oncological Hospital in Bydgoszcz, Poland, over a period of three months. The installation for thermal treatment consisted of a loading unit, a combustion chamber, and a discharge chamber (thermoreactor). The medical waste constituted the primary fuel, a...

How Much Waste is Wasteful? Although medical and infectious wastes are often highlighted in evaluations of Hospital Solid Waste Composition a hospital’s waste stream, these hazardous wastes constitute only 15% of a hospital’s total waste generation. The remaining 85% of a hospital’s waste, which is Other 10% Wood 3% Glass 7% Plastics 15% Food 10% Metals 10% Paper 45% considered to be nonhazardo...

Clinical practices surrounding the current Ebola epidemic have been center stage in discourse concerning research and practice of care. As the medical community becomes more sophisticated in understanding the many facets of treating and containing this virus, the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit Q6 has identified Ebola medical waste disposal as a key area of concern for U.S. hospitals. The requirem...

This study concentrates on designing a medical waste management system with a hierarchical structure, including a local government and a waste management planner. The upper-level seeks to design and control the waste management facilities by minimizing the environmental risks related to the disposal of medical waste. While the lower-level model is to determine the waste collection plans by only...

We consider a Periodic Load-dependent Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (PLCVRP) encountered by medical centers and medical waste collection companies for the design of a weekly inventory routing schedule to transport medical wastes to treatment sites. In addition to minimization of transportation risk, occupational risk related to temporary storage of hazardous wastes at the health-care cent...