The improper management of hospital waste can harm health-care workers (HCWs), patients, the general public and even the environment.
Hospital waste contains potentially harmful microorganisms which may cause infections.
Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Southeast Asia and the Department of Health (DOH) conducted a waste audit during the pandemic lockdowns in five hospitals, namely, Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center (ARMM), Lung Center of the Philippines, National Center for Mental Health, National Children’s Hospital, and Quirino Memorial Medical Center to determine the effects of Covid-19 on the quality and quantity of waste produced by health institutions.
According to Dr. Ma. Via Jucille M. Roderos, the Climate Reality Project Leader, said that based in their health-care waste audit, half of the waste produced in four of the five mentioned hospitals are “infectious.”
The audit did not indicate total hospital waste but only the waste generated in four areas—Emergency Room, Dietary Department, Medical Ward, and Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Dr. Roderos said 50 percent of the total waste across all hospitals are infectious and that the average weight of waste produced by four surveyed areas is 226 kilograms per day in five hospitals. “Medical paraphernalia comprise of the 25 percent of the total items discarded in surveyed hospitals,” Dr. Roderos said.
She said that syringes are the most commonly used medical paraphernalia comprising 65 percent of the total waste discarded and 16 percent of the total waste produced.
“Most of the plastic waste are non-essential single-use plastics comprising 57 percent of the total waste produced in the surveyed areas,” she said.
Plastic food containers comprise 23 percent of the total waste collected in the five hospitals.
Hospital waste increase
Dr. Imelda Mateo, medical director of ARMM, observed that their collection of hospital waste increased during the pandemic.
From January to December 2019, Dr. Mateo said that the waste collected in their four areas was 209,298 kgs. From the same period in 2020, it was recorded at 294,734 kgs; and 132,772 kgs from January to present.
“This shows that there is a significant increase in the production of hazardous plastics due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Dr. Mateo said.
Dr. Roderos also stressed that there is a noted increase in the use of personal protective equipment (PPEs) in each hospital due to the current situation that the country is battling Covid-19.
“We estimate[d] around 10 to 20 percent increase of PPEs waste alone,” she added noting that commonly used medical paraphernalia are syringes “and this has an implication in terms of our vaccine rollout.”
“But it can also harm the environment in a way. Before the rollout of the vaccines most of the medical paraphernalia used in the hospitals alone are syringes,” she said.
Cigarette and e-cigarette waste
Just like hospital waste, HealthJustice Philippines, a non-profit organization, also warned that cigarette and e-cigarette waste will end up harming the health of the people and the environment.
HealthJustice stressed that everyone deserves to breathe clean air and called on the public to exercise utmost environmental responsibility and refrain from littering and smoking.
Former Health Secretary Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan, HealthJustice Philippines Board Member, said that as Earth Day 2021, an annual event celebrated globally to support environmental protection, was observed on April 22, people should be reminded of the negative impact of littering on the environment and human health.
“Not only do we need to achieve a healthy environment but a smoke-free environment as well and prevent the common practice of littering cigarette butts,” said Dr. Tan.
He lamented that smoking has a pernicious effect. HealthJustice has been pushing for effective tobacco control measures in the Philippines.
Dr. Tan said people tend to throw litter anywhere without minding the environmental consequences.
According to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, the most common litter are cigarette butts, plastic bags, plastic bottles, paper and plastic food wrappers, polystyrene containers, food leftovers, and papers.
Of the litter the agency collected, there were 2,957 pieces of cigarette butts in 2020 while 1,765 pieces were recorded from January to April 18 this year.
This made environmentalist Anya Mendoza frown as littering should not be tolerated and not be taken lightly for it may also lead to disease.
“They should understand that littering can be avoided. It is high time that people start contributing contribute by protecting the environment,” Mendoza of the Climate Change Network for Community-based Initiatives Inc. said, stressing that the public should know how their actions in their daily life greatly affect the environment.
Dangers to the environment
America’s largest nonprofit public health organization Truth Initiative also underscored the need to dispose of e-cigarette and cigarette waste properly.
If e-cigarette and cigarette waste make their way to the environment they end up “polluting water, air, and land with toxic chemicals, heavy metals and residual nicotine.”
The group’s fact sheet also showed that cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, a plastic which only degrades under severe biological circumstances, such as when filters collect in sewage.
Under optimal conditions, it can take at least nine months for a cigarette butt to degrade. The sun may break cigarette butts down, but only into smaller pieces of waste which dilute into water/soil. Unlike cigarette butts, e-cigarette waste, on the other hand, “cannot biodegrade even under severe conditions.”
E-cigarette cartridges that are discarded on streets get mixed with leaf litter and get pushed around by the weather, the group stressed. This will eventually break down into microplastics and chemicals that flow into storm drains to pollute waterways and wildlife.
Data from the Truth Initiative further showed that cigarette and e-cigarette waste can pollute soil, beaches and waterways.
Studies have also shown that cigarette and e-cigarette waste is harmful to wildlife.