Impact Assessment on Solid Health-Care Waste Management in Addis Ababa, And Identification of Energy Recovery Possibility
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Date
2008-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In recent world the best way of protecting community health mainly depends on preventive methods rather than curative means. Due to this reason, having good solid health-care waste management and disposal in every health-care center is inevitable. The present study is conducted in five systematically selected sample hospitals in Addis Ababa. The main objective of the study was to assess the impacts arose from the current health-care solid waste management, predict proper treatment and disposal mechanism and check the possibility of heat recovery during treatment of waste. The sampling method used is two-stage cluster sampling with 90 % confidence level. In these sample hospitals, solid waste was collected for one week from 84 randomly selected beds of the total occupied 505 beds. The mean waste generation rate for the city was estimated to be 1.227± 0.253 Kg/ day. bed, like wise the generation rate for the private and governmental hospitals were estimated applying the same data. To achieve these results different statistical estimation methods are used. On top of this, proper on site sorting was done in order to perform proximate analysis to seven waste categories. Based on this analysis the maximum infected hospital waste in the city was estimated to be 662 Kg/day. Additionally, an attempt is done to address the overall solid waste management trend all over the routes to disposal. Possible Environmental, health and social impacts are identified for every waste management route. Analyzing the data found, health, environmental and social impact has 37.7, 35.6, and 26.7% impact contribution respectively. To identify the energy recovery of the treatment plant, secondary data from WHO that gives the minimum calorific value for infectious waste and estimated total generation rate of infectious waste in the city was used to determine the energy generation to be 104 Kg/hr, which is less than the capacity of medium sized steam generator. Since the capacity of the energy is less, possible ways of utilizing this small energy was suggested.
Finally, based on the results and findings of the present study, certain solid waste management, treatment and disposal recommendations are forwarded to improve the management and minimize the impact of solid health-care waste in Addis Ababa.
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Energy recovery possibility