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 univeresty
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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