Kenny Christina, Priyadarshini Anushree
College of Business, Technological University Dublin, 2 Dublin, Ireland.
Environment Sustainability and Health Institute, Technological University Dublin, 7 Dublin, Ireland.
Healthcare (Basel). 2021 Mar 5;9(3):284. doi: 10.3390/healthcare9030284.
Healthcare is a rapidly growing industry as medical treatments become more sophisticated, more in demand due to increasing incidence of chronic disease and more widely available worldwide. This booming industry is also creating more waste than ever before and, as such, there is a growing need to treat and dispose of this waste. Healthcare waste (HCW) disposal includes a multitude of disposal methods, including incineration, landfilling and chemical treatments. These rudimentary methods and their growing use present their own problems that negatively impact both the environment and, in turn, damage public health, thus contributing to a global healthcare crisis. The aim of this review was to examine the current HCW disposal methods in place and the harmful effects they have on the environment and on public health. The findings accumulated in this review demonstrate a heavy reliance on basic, low tech HCW disposal techniques and uncovered the negative impacts of these methods. There is a notable lack of employment of "greener" HCW disposal methods on a largescale due to cost, access and feasibility. Despite innovations in HCW disposal, there is no scalable, global green solution at present. Further, the review highlights that global health consequences of HCW disposal methods often differ depending on how developed the country is.
随着医疗治疗变得更加复杂，因慢性病发病率上升而需求增加，且在全球范围内更广泛可得，医疗保健行业正在迅速发展。这个蓬勃发展的行业也产生了比以往任何时候都更多的废物，因此，处理和处置这些废物的需求日益增长。医疗保健废物（HCW）处置包括多种处置方法，如焚烧、填埋和化学处理。这些基本方法及其日益广泛的使用带来了自身的问题，对环境产生负面影响，进而损害公众健康，从而导致全球医疗保健危机。本综述的目的是研究当前的医疗保健废物处置方法及其对环境和公众健康的有害影响。本综述中积累的研究结果表明，人们严重依赖基本的、低技术的医疗保健废物处置技术，并揭示了这些方法的负面影响。由于成本、获取途径和可行性等原因，目前明显缺乏大规模采用“更环保”的医疗保健废物处置方法的情况。尽管在医疗保健废物处置方面有创新，但目前还没有可扩展的全球绿色解决方案。此外，该综述强调，医疗保健废物处置方法对全球健康的影响往往因国家的发展程度而异。
