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biohazard waste

A visit to any healthcare facility in the world will reveal red bins, sharps containers and biohazard symbols. These measures all aid in managing the huge quantities of hazardous medical waste that the healthcare system generates.

Most countries have regulations in place that require this waste to be treated and made non-infectious or non-hazardous before it can be taken to a landfill site. Once the treatment process has been completed, the garbage may then be thrown away with the normal, everyday solid waste. Some larger facilities, like big hospitals, handle their own treatment, but most smaller healthcare providers use medical waste management companies. These companies will fetch the waste from the source, transport it to the treatment facility, certify that it has been treated, then transport it to the landfill site.

There are various treatment measures:

Autoclaving- steam under high pressure is utilized to kill harmful pathogens

Incineration- pathological and chemotherapy waste are treated at very high temperatures to combust them

Microwaving

Shredding- some states require that after treatment, medical waste is shredded to make it unrecognizable before it is disposed of at the landfill site.