Incineration: How Medical Waste is Incinerated
8/6/2021
Incineration is a thermal process that reduces organic and combustible waste into inorganic, incombustible matter. This high temperature reduces the waste volume and weight and works best for waste that cannot be disposed of, reused, and recycled.
Unlike waste disposal methods like autoclaving, incineration requires no pre-treatment to destroy medical waste. It works effectively for different types of medical wastes such as:
• Dressing materials.
However, incineration cannot be used for wastes such as pressurized gas containers, waste with high mercury, radiographic waste, or a large amount of reactive chemical waste. For chemical and pharmaceutical wastes to be destroyed, very high temperatures will be needed. Normally, medical waste incinerators operate at high temperatures of between 900 to 1200 degrees Celsius.
Today, medical waste incinerators are becoming popular in developing countries where mobile incinerators are used on-site in hospitals and clinics. Developing countries in Africa and Asia use incinerators that are cost-effective and feature simple designs.
Pyrolytic incineration is the most reliable and popular medical waste incineration technology. This incinerator is also known as a double-chamber incinerator or controlled air incinerator and is designed with a post-combustion chamber and pyrolytic chamber.
The process involves thermally decomposing medical waste into the pyrolytic chamber via an oxygen-deficient combustion process with a medium temperature of 800-900 degrees Celsius. Consequently, this produces gases and solid ashes.
Although incinerators are becoming popular in developing countries, the WHO has said that there could be risks associated with them. These risks are in the form of carbon monoxide, acid gases, pathogens, organic compounds, particulate matter, heavy compounds, and dioxins.