What Is Clinical Waste Management?
Clinical waste management describes the process of responsibly storing, transferring, and disposing of clinical refuse. The latter stages usually being carried out by a waste management service.
What Is Clinical Waste?
Clinical waste itself is fairly difficult to define but essentially it is the waste produced from healthcare activity including veterinary healthcare as well as waste similar in nature which is not strictly produced by healthcare such as the refuse from tattoo parlours.
There are two main types of clinical waste: Infectious and Offensive (non-infectious).
Infectious waste includes used swabs, bandages, disposable medical devices and infectious agents such as those produced by laboratories.
Offensive (non-infectious) waste is refuse which is not infectious, does not contain chemical substances, and is likely to cause offence to human senses, notably, smell. An example would be nappies.
How Is This Type Of Waste Disposed Of Safely?
To dispose of clinical waste responsibly and safely many businesses will use a clinical waste management service which will usually provide you with a dedicated bin(s), empty your bins on a pre-arranged schedule and transport it to an appropriate disposal facility.
Infectious waste is often incinerated to kill off infectious substances and prevent contamination. Whereas, offensive waste is often sterilised and/or recycled into biofuel.
Why Is Clinical Waste Management Necessary?
As a business owner, you need to determine whether your business is producing clinical waste. You can do this by conducting a waste audit (you can find out more about that here) and by consulting a waste management service who can advise as to whether you need a bin for this waste stream.
If you are producing this type of waste, you will need a dedicated bin and you will need to educate and train all of your employees to not put anything other than clinical waste into this bin and to not put any clinical waste into any other bin.
To get your bin and have it collected and emptied safely you should use a clinical waste management company. This is extremely important since this type of waste is potentially dangerous and needs to be treated appropriately and it is very unlikely that your business has the resources to do that.
If you need help with your clinical waste then contact us at CheaperWaste or simply fill in the quick and easy quote form below to get a free quote.
