Biomedical waste - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Biomedical waste, consists of solids, liquids, sharps, and laboratory waste that are potentially infectious or dangerous and are considered biowaste

Biowaste

Biowaste is material that is capable of self-replication and is harmful or potentially harmful to other living organisms....

. It must be properly managed to protect the general public, specifically healthcare and sanitation workers who are regularly exposed to biomedical waste as an occupational hazard.

Biomedical waste differs from other types of hazardous waste

Hazardous waste

A hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. According to the U.S. environmental laws hazardous wastes fall into two major categories: characteristic wastes and listed wastes.Characteristic hazardous wastes are materials that are known...

, such as industrial waste

Industrial waste

Industrial waste is a type of waste produced by industrial activity, such as that of factories, mills and mines. It has existed since the outset of the industrial revolution....

, in that it comes from biological sources or is used in the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of diseases. Common producers of biomedical waste include hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

s, health clinics, nursing home

Nursing home

A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...

s, medical research laboratories, offices of physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

s, dentist

Dentist

A dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...

s, and veterinarian

Veterinarian

A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....

s, home health care, and funeral home

Funeral home

A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary, is a business that provides burial and funeral services for the deceased and their families. These services may include aprepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral....

Solids

Catheters and tubes
Disposable gowns
Hospital gown
A hospital gown, also known as a patient gown, exam gown, johnny shirt or johnny gown, is a short-sleeved, thigh-length garment worn by patients in hospitals and other medical facilities.-Utility:...

, masks, and scrubs
Scrubs (clothing)
Scrubs are the shirts and trousers or gowns worn by nurses , surgeons, and other operating room personnel when "scrubbing in" for surgery. In the United Kingdom, they are sometimes known as Theatre Blues. They are designed to be simple with minimal places for dirt to hide, easy to launder, and...
Disposable tools, such as some scalpel
Scalpel
A scalpel, or lancet, is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, and various arts and crafts . Scalpels may be single-use disposable or re-usable. Re-usable scalpels can have attached, resharpenable blades or, more commonly, non-attached, replaceable...

s and surgical staplers
Medical gloves
Medical gloves
Medical gloves are disposable gloves used during medical examinations and procedures that help prevent contamination between caregivers and patients. Medical gloves are made of different polymers including latex, nitrile rubber, vinyl and neoprene; they come unpowdered, or powdered with cornstarch...
Surgical sutures and staples
Surgical staple
Surgical staples are specialized staples used in surgery in place of sutures to close skin wounds, connect or remove parts of the bowels or lungs. A more recent development, from the 1990s, uses clips instead of staples for some applications; this does not require the staple to penetrate.Stapling...
Wound dressings
Dressing (medical)
A dressing is an adjunct used by a person for application to a wound to promote healing and/or prevent further harm. A dressing is designed to be in direct contact with the wound, which makes it different from a bandage, which is primarily used to hold a dressing in place...

Liquids

Blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
Body fluids and tissues
Cell
Cell culture
Cell culture is the complex process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions. In practice, the term "cell culture" has come to refer to the culturing of cells derived from singlecellular eukaryotes, especially animal cells. However, there are also cultures of plants, fungi and microbes,...

, organ
Organ culture
Organ culture is a development from tissue culture methods of research, the organ culture is able to accurately model functions of an organ in various states and conditions by the use of the actual in vitro organ itself....

, and tissue
Tissue culture
Tissue culture is the growth of tissues or cells separate from the organism. This is typically facilitated via use of a liquid, semi-solid, or solid growth medium, such as broth or agar...

cultures

Sharps

Blades, such as razor
Razor
A razor is a bladed tool primarily used in the removal of unwanted body hair through the act of shaving. Kinds of razors include straight razors, disposable razors and electric razors....

or scalpel
Scalpel
A scalpel, or lancet, is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, and various arts and crafts . Scalpels may be single-use disposable or re-usable. Re-usable scalpels can have attached, resharpenable blades or, more commonly, non-attached, replaceable...

blades
Lancets
Materials made of glass, such as cuvette
Cuvette
A cuvette is a small tube of circular or square cross section, sealed at one end, made of plastic, glass, or fused quartz and designed to hold samples for spectroscopic experiments. The best cuvettes are as clear as possible, without impurities that might affect a spectroscopic reading...

s and slides
Microscope slide
A microscope slide is a thin flat piece of glass, typically 75 by 25 mm and about 1 mm thick, used to hold objects for examination under a microscope. Typically the object is placed or secured on the slide, and then both are inserted together in the microscope for viewing...
Metal stylets
Needles
Plastic pipette
Pipette
A pipette is a laboratory tool used to transport a measured volume of liquid.-Use and variations:Pipettes are commonly used in molecular biology, analytical chemistry as well as medical tests...

s and tips
Syringe
Syringe
A syringe is a simple pump consisting of a plunger that fits tightly in a tube. The plunger can be pulled and pushed along inside a cylindrical tube , allowing the syringe to take in and expel a liquid or gas through an orifice at the open end of the tube...

s

Laboratory waste

Animal carcasses
Hazardous chemicals with biological components
Media
Growth medium
A growth medium or culture medium is a liquid or gel designed to support the growth of microorganisms or cells, or small plants like the moss Physcomitrella patens.There are different types of media for growing different types of cells....
Medicinal plants
Radioactive material with biological components
Supernatants
Syringes

Exceptions

Cadaver

A cadaver is a dead human body.Cadaver may also refer to:* Cadaver tomb, tomb featuring an effigy in the form of a decomposing body* Cadaver , a video game* cadaver A command-line WebDAV client for Unix....

s, urine, faeces, and cytotoxic drugs are not considered biomedical waste.

Biomedical Waste Management

Sorting of medical wastes in hospital.At the site where it is generated, biomedical waste is placed in specially-labelled bags and containers for removal by biomedical waste transporters. Other forms of waste should not be mixed with biomedical waste as different rules apply to the treatment of different types of waste.

Household biomedical waste usually consists of needles and syringes from drugs administered at home (such as insulin

Insulin

Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....

), soiled wound dressings

Dressing (medical)

A dressing is an adjunct used by a person for application to a wound to promote healing and/or prevent further harm. A dressing is designed to be in direct contact with the wound, which makes it different from a bandage, which is primarily used to hold a dressing in place...

, disposable gloves, and bedsheets or other cloths that have come into contact with bodily fluids. Disposing of these materials with regular household garbage puts waste collector

Waste collector

A waste collector is a person employed by a public or private enterprise to collect and remove refuse and recyclables from residential, commercial, industrial or other collection site for further processing and disposal...

s at risk for injury and infection especially from sharps as they can easily puncture a standard household garbage bag. Many communities have programs in place for the disposal of household biomedical waste. Some waste treatment facilities also have mail-in disposal programs.
Biomedical waste treatment facilities are licensed by the local governing body which maintains laws regarding the operation of these facilities. The laws ensure that the general public is protected from contamination of air, soil,groundwater, or municipal water supply. A company that helps out by putting all of the laws and information in one location is B&D Biomedical Waste Services, they have all websites and links to all laws in Florida for the safe and proper disposal of biomedical waste. Another company, BioMedical Technology Solutions, Inc., offers a green alternative to haul-away services for disposal of biomedical waste. The Company's desktop unit, the Demolizer® II, is the only patented, portable, and self-contained system able to process both sharps and typical red bag biomedical waste onsite. Upon processing the biomedical waste in the unit, all regulatory paperwork is printed from the system and the waste is able to be disposed of as common trash.

Protection from Biomedical Waste

Wash your hands with soap and warm water after handling biomedical waste. Also, wash all areas of your body with soap and water that you think may have come into contact with biomedical waste, even if you are not sure your body actually touched the biomedical waste.

Keep all sores and cuts covered.
Immediately replace wet bandages with clean, dry bandages.
Wear disposable latex gloves when handling biomedical waste. Discard the gloves immediately after use.
Wear an apron or another type of cover to protect your clothes from contact with the waste. If your clothes become soiled, put on fresh clothes, and take a shower, if possible.
Launder or throw away clothes soiled with biomedical waste.
Promptly clean and disinfect soiled, hard-surfaced floors by using a germicidal or bleach solution and mopping up with paper towels.
Clean soiled carpets. First blot up as much of the spill as possible with paper towels and put the soiled paper towels in a plastic lined, leak-proof container. Then try one of the following:
Steam clean the carpet with an extraction method.
Scrub the carpet with germicidal rug shampoo and a brush. Soak the brush used for scrubbing in a disinfectant solution and rinse the brush. Let the carpet dry, and then vacuum it.
Never handle syringes, needles, or lancets with your hands. Use a towel, shovel, and/or broom and a dustpan to pick up these sharp objects. Dispose of them in a plastic soda pop bottle with a cap. Tape down the bottle cap. Then throw the bottle in the trash.