Incineration of medical waste a source of heat and energy production
Medical waste is generated as a result of the activities of various types of health care facilities (e.g. hospitals, outpatient clinics, pharmacological facilities, laboratories, veterinary facilities). Annually in Poland, up to approx. 200 000 t of residues such as used needles, syringes or gloves may be generated annually in Poland. Of these, 20 to 25 per cent are particularly hazardous fractions that require special handling due to their infectious, specialised or pathological nature. These types of materials require a special approach - their treatment must be carried out in accordance with strict regulations that exclude the methods used for municipal waste. The regulations in force clearly indicate the need for thermal disposal in dedicated facilities. It is only at temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius that all pathogenic micro-organisms are destroyed and the spread of viruses and bacteria can be prevented through such procedures.
- We can definitely consider thermal waste conversion as a green solution. Years ago, Poland had an autoclave, something inefficient that generated massive landfills. When waste is thermally transformed, only slag and ash are produced, which minimises the negative effects of landfilling. What's more, the energy can be converted into heat as well as electricity and thus affect our competitiveness, explains the vice-president of EMKA.
Special filters are installed inside the plant, whose main task is to prevent harmful substances from entering the atmosphere.
The Philips report ‘Green Hospitals’ emphasises the need to build new hazardous waste disposal facilities or to expand and increase the capacity of existing facilities. This was evident, for example, during the pandemic. In 2021, a 50 per cent increase in medical waste made it a challenge to collect and dispose of infectious waste in a timely manner. With a practically unchanged number of 23 installations authorised to incinerate such waste across the country, at the height of the pandemic there was often paralysis manifested in the huge amounts of rubbish lying in hospital corridors and driveways, which none of the overloaded installations could accept any longer. Experts from GIDE, quoted in the report, point out, however, that complicated administrative procedures and social resistance from local residents, who simply do not agree to a waste treatment plant being built in their neighbourhood, remain major barriers. Hazardous waste treatment or storage facilities, under environmental regulations, are classified as projects that may always have a significant impact on the environment, which means that their construction or expansion is associated with lengthy environmental impact assessment studies and public consultations.
