Quantitative analysis of healthcare waste generation and composition in Antalya, Turkey

Abstract

Health-care waste (HCW) may pose a risk to human health and the environment because of its infectious and/or toxic properties. This study was conducted to evaluate the quantity and composition of all the HCW generated by different producers in Antalya, Turkey, using data obtained from two online systems. Accordingly, this study explored the trends in healthcare waste generation (HCWG) between 2010 and 2020 and the impact of COVID-19 on HCWG by comparing the post- and pre-COVID-19 patterns based on the data obtained from 2,029 different producers. The collected data were based on the waste codes reported by the European Commission, were characterised based on the definition of the World Health Organization, and were further analysed according to the healthcare types defined by the Turkish Ministry of Health to characterize HCW. The findings indicate that the main HCW contributor was infectious waste (94.62 %), most of which was generated by hospitals (80 %). This is due to the inclusion of only HCW fractions in this study and to the definition of infectious waste considered. This study indicates that the categorisation into the type of HCSs may be a good option to assess the increase of HCW quantities, in accordance with the service type, size, and the effects of COVID-19. The correlation results for hospitals offering primary HCS revealed a strong relationship between the HCWG rate and the population per year. This approach may help estimate future trends to promote better HCW management practices for the specific cases considered, and it can even be applied to other cities.

Keywords: Generation rate; Hazardous waste; Health care waste; Infectious waste; Medical waste; Statistics.