Segregation An essential component of pollution prevention is the proper segregation of waste streams from a health care facility. Health care wastes are some of the most diverse and complex produced in any institution. Not only must basic solid wastes be managed, but biohazardous wastes, radioactive wastes and a wide range of chemical hazardous wastes as well. The direct threat to workers and to water supplies through these last wastes is often overlooked in plans to manage health care wastes. Only when different types of waste are properly separated can each be handled and treated in an appropriate manner, allowing for re-use, recycling, disinfection, and proper disposal.
Segregation is therefore a prerequisite for any sustainable waste management program.
Where hazardous chemicals cannot be replaced by non-hazardous substitutes, facilities should minimize their use and waste. Health care institutions should include source segregation and waste minimization systems in their environmental management plans. That treaty calls for the use of substitute processes to prevent the formation and release of these POPs byproducts. Clearly, creating additional sources of dioxins, furans, PCBs and HCB, for example by financing new medical waste incinerators, or increasing the quantity of material burned in existing incinerators, contradicts the intention if not the letter of the treaty. Fortunately, there are several other technologies for disinfecting medical waste which do not produce POPs, such as autoclaving, microwaving, chemical disinfection, etc.