Hospital waste, also known as medical waste or healthcare waste, encompasses a wide range of materials used in healthcare facilities such as hospitals, clinics, laboratories, and other medical settings. These wastes are categorized into different groups based on their potential hazard and disposal process. The main categories of hospital waste include:

• Infectious waste: this category includes infectious or potentially infectious materials such as human tissues, used syringes, needles, bandages, sharp objects, biological samples, and other waste contaminated with blood, secretions, or pathogens.
• Hazardous waste: this category comprises hazardous chemicals, expired or unused medications, chemicals used in laboratories, radiology, and other medical procedures that may contain hazardous materials.
• General waste: general waste includes non-infectious and non-hazardous materials used in hospitals, such as paper, plastic, cardboard, packaging, uncontaminated food, and other generic waste.
• Radioactive waste: radioactive waste includes materials contaminated with ionizing radiation, such as gloves or garments used in radiology, expired radiopharmaceuticals, and other radioactive substances.
• Pharmaceutical waste: this category encompasses expired or unused medications, medicine containers, unclaimed prescriptions, and other pharmaceutical-related waste.

It is essential to manage hospital waste properly to prevent the spread of infections, protect the environment, and ensure the safety of healthcare workers and the public. With this in mind, a Milan-based engineering company specializing in environmental facilities commissioned us to design and build two identical waste shredding plants for hospital waste in 60-liter cardboard boxes. The goal was to obtain, after a complex high-temperature treatment, a secondary solid fuel (CSS).

CSS can be used in existing industrial plants (cement factories, steel mills, power plants, etc.) as a replacement for traditional fuels and in waste-to-energy power plants for electricity generation: from hospital waste to waste-to-energy.

Design and Implementation of Two Hospital Waste Treatment Plants

We designed and built two shredding plants, each equipped with a 60 HP four-shaft shredder, model 4S 12/60, with 30mm selection grids to ensure controlled particle size and uniformity in the final volume of processed material.

Hospital waste is contained in 60-liter cardboard boxes and deposited in typical waste bins, attached to a bin-loader that lifts, tips, and empties the boxes into the shredder’s loading hopper.

The hopper is equipped with a large damper synchronized with the bin-loader, steam injection, and aspiration. A discharge auger beneath the shredder conveys the material to the next treatment cycle. The entire process is automated and managed by a Siemens PLC, in line with the most advanced Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 requirements.

To prevent cardboard boxes from jamming in the loading hopper, two “agitators” driven by gearmotors rotate alternately in one direction and the other, moving the boxes and preventing bridging.

The Waste-to-Energy Concept

The concept of “waste-to-energy” (WTE) refers to a process in which solid urban waste or other types of waste are used as raw materials to produce energy, typically in the form of electricity or heat. This process involves controlled combustion or gasification of waste to generate heat, which is then converted into electrical or thermal energy using turbines or other devices. The primary goal of waste-to-energy is to reduce the amount of waste destined for landfills, recover energy from renewable resources, and contribute to sustainable waste management and energy supply.

Our sales team is at your full disposal to provide further information and introduce you to our extensive range of industrial shredders.

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L'articolo From Hospital Waste to Waste-to-Energy proviene da SatrindTech Srl.

The management of medical and hospital waste is regulated by complex legislation, aimed at protecting operators and reducing disposal risks. The European Waste Catalogue (EWC), implemented in Italy since 2002 through a Directive of the Ministry of the Environment, classifies medical waste into different categories:

• non-hazardous waste classified as municipal waste
• hazardous infectious waste (PRI) and sharp and pointed material (PRI) waste
• hazardous non-infectious waste (NON PRI)
• waste requiring special disposal

Medical waste production takes place mostly in hospital facilities and in analysis laboratories. In addition to waste material that can be classified as municipal waste, these facilities generate a particular type of hazardous waste, which presents risks of infection and contamination.

The collection and management of medical and hospital waste  impacts all healthcare personnel and operators in charge of collection and storage within organisations during their ordinary activities. During 2015-2017, the HCWM European project, set professional standards and training courses to identify the most suitable procedures and practices.

The most interesting aspect of the special treatment of this waste, involved collection and final disposal. In these phases, the risk of environmental pollution occurs when there is sub-standard treatment or the use of unsuitable solutions during disposal and recycling.

Industrial shredders, within specialised plants, can play an essential role in reducing the volume of special hospital waste.

Waste to Energy and medical waste

According to the ISPRA Special Waste Report published in 2016, about 2.5 billion tons of waste are produced in the European Union, 96 percent of which are non-hazardous and four percent hazardous. a significant part of medical waste in Italy is destined for waste-to-energy incineration.

According to the Report, 110,000 tons, or 7.9 percent of the total incinerated waste in 2014 was medical waste.  103,000 tons of this waste was hazardous.

The incineration of hospital waste can lead to highly polluting atmospheric emissions. The new incineration plants or those adapted to the regulations guarantee lower emission levels by a few orders of magnitude, compared to the past. This does not remove the presence of harmful substances, such as mercury from medical waste.

On-site hospital waste sterilisation

Improving waste sorting to isolate certain hazardous parts of medical waste mitigates the problem, while increasing collection costs.

A different strategy could aim at on-site sterilisation of hazardous medical waste, i.e. a method that aims at weight (25 percent) and volume (75 percent) reduction, waste drying and a significant cost saving. On-site sterilisation is a self-disposal process practised within a single healthcare facility (short supply chain). The process transforms the special hazardous infectious waste into waste that can be classified as municipal or disposed of appropriately.

The management of medical and hospital waste  creates many issues, which affect public and private organisations, people and the environment. SatrindTech has often been contacted to evaluate the inclusion of its shredders in the process of industrial waste disposal, especially for volume reduction for recycling and waste-to-energy purposes. For hospital waste, our products can shred vials, metal medical instruments, diapers, medical containers of all types and materials to meet the specific needs of each plant.

The correct management of medical and hospital waste and hazardous waste represents a great opportunity for development and prevention for the reduction of risks to the environment. Together with SatrindTech, you can minimise risks and optimise disposal processes.

L'articolo Management of medical and hospital waste proviene da SatrindTech Srl.