Study of the economic consequences and phthalate emission caused by centralized and decentralized patterns of infectious waste management.

The development of health services of hospitals in developing countries has led to a significant increase in the production of infectious waste, which has important economic and environmental consequences. Therefore, reducing pollutant leakage caused by disinfection and reducing infectious waste management costs are important in achieving sustainable development goals in hospital management. In this study, the centralized and decentralized patterns of infectious waste management were studied in three hospitals in Behbahan, Iran. Economic analysis was done based on the financial model. Phthalate emission from disinfection equipment was measured for investigating the level of exposure to the pollutant in the studied patterns. The results showed that the cost of waste transportation for studied hospitals in the centralized patterns increased by 12.1 %. However, reductions in disinfection and transfer costs up to 32.4 % were available by increasing the segregation ratio of infectious waste. The average emission of phthalates from disinfection equipment in the studied hospitals was 0.260 ng/kg. But emission of phthalate types was not the same, so that the emission of BEHP, IBP, and DBP was 35.97, 4.90, and 1.55 μg/m, respectively. Considering the hospital waste reduction plan and increasing the segregation ratio to reduce the costs of the hospital led to economic justification of the centralized pattern of infectious waste management as a safe option.