Hazardous medical waste generation rates of different categories of health-care facilities

Goal of this work was to calculate the hazardous medical waste unit generation rates (HMWUGR), in kg bed−1 d−1, using data from 132 health-care facilities in Greece. The calculations were based on the weights of the hazardous medical wastes that were regularly transferred to the sole medical waste incinerator in Athens over a 22-month period during years 2009 and 2010. The 132 health-care facilities were grouped into public and private ones, and, also, into seven sub-categories, namely: birth, cancer treatment, general, military, pediatric, psychiatric and university hospitals. Results showed that there is a large variability in the HMWUGR, even among hospitals of the same category. Average total HMWUGR varied from 0.012 kg bed−1 d−1, for the public psychiatric hospitals, to up to 0.72 kg bed−1 d−1, for the public university hospitals. Within the private hospitals, average HMWUGR ranged from 0.0012 kg bed−1 d−1, for the psychiatric clinics, to up to 0.49 kg bed−1 d−1, for the birth clinics. Based on non-parametric statistics, HMWUGR were statistically similar for the birth and general hospitals, in both the public and private sector. The private birth and general hospitals generated statistically more wastes compared to the corresponding public hospitals. The infectious/toxic and toxic medical wastes appear to be 10% and 50% of the total hazardous medical wastes generated by the public cancer treatment and university hospitals, respectively.

► We calculated hazardous medical waste generation rates (HMWGR) from 132 hospitals.
► Based on a 22-month study period, HMWGR were highly skewed to the right.
► The HMWGR varied from 0.00124 to 0.718 kg bed−1 d−1.
► A positive correlation existed between the HMWGR and the number of hospital beds.
► We used non-parametric statistics to compare rates among hospital categories.