Why is high temperature steam medical waste disposal technology not applicable to pharmaceutical waste, pathological waste and chemical waste?

According to the Technical Specification for the Centralized Disposal of Medical Waste, the state promotes the centralized disposal of medical waste, and at this stage, the centralized disposal of medical waste should adopt high-temperature thermal disposal technology, which is applicable to all medical wastes except chemical wastes. The article clearly put forward high temperature thermal disposal technology does not apply to chemical medical waste.

But it should be noted that, according to the "medical waste treatment and disposal of pollution prevention and control of the best feasible technical guidelines (for trial implementation)" (HJ-BAT-8), the use of high-temperature thermal treatment of medical waste is applicable to infectious, injurious, pathological, chemical and pharmaceutical medical waste disposal. This provision clearly states that high-temperature heat treatment can be applied to chemical medical waste.

According to the Classification Catalog of Medical Wastes, medical wastes are divided into infectious wastes, pathological wastes, injurious wastes, pharmaceutical wastes and chemical wastes.

(1) Infectious waste

Waste characteristics: medical waste carrying pathogenic microorganisms with the risk of spreading infectious diseases.

Common waste:

①Patient blood, body fluids, excreta contaminated items, including: cotton balls, swabs, drainage tampons, gauze and other dressings; single-use sanitary products, single-use medical supplies and disposable medical equipment; discarded clothing; other patient blood, body fluids, excreta contaminated items.

② medical institutions admitted to the isolation of infectious disease patients or suspected infectious disease patients generated by the living garbage.

3 pathogens, culture media, specimens and strains of bacteria, venomous species preservation fluid.

④A variety of discarded medical specimens.

⑤ Discarded blood and serum.

6 The used single-use medical supplies and disposable medical devices are considered as infectious waste.

(2) Pathological waste

Waste characteristics: diagnosis and treatment process of human waste and medical laboratory animal carcasses.

Common wastes:

1) surgical and other diagnostic process of human tissue, organs and other waste.

② medical laboratory animal tissue, carcasses.

③ Pathology section of discarded human tissue, pathological wax blocks.

(3) injurious waste

Waste characteristics: the ability to stab or cut the human body discarded medical sharps.

Common waste:

①Medical needles, suture needles.

② all kinds of medical sharps, including: scalpels, scalpels, skin preparation knife, surgical saws.

③Slides, glass test tubes, glass ampoules and so on.

(4) pharmaceutical waste

Waste characteristics: expired, eliminated, deteriorated or contaminated waste drugs.

Common wastes:

①Waste of general medicines, such as: antibiotics, over-the-counter medicines.

② discarded cytotoxic drugs and genotoxic drugs, including: carcinogenic drugs, such as azathioprine, phenylbutyric acid nitrogen mustard, naphthyl nitrogen mustard, cyclosporine, cyclophosphamide, phenylpropionic acid nitrogen mustard, smectin, triamcinolone acetonide, thiotepa and so on; suspected carcinogenic drugs, such as: cisplatin, mitomycin, adriamycin, phenobarbital and so on; immunosuppressive agents.

3) Discarded vaccines, blood products and so on.

(5) chemical waste

Waste characteristics: toxic, corrosive, flammable and explosive waste chemicals.

Common wastes:

① Medical imaging room, laboratory waste chemical reagents.

② discarded peroxyacetic acid, glutaraldehyde and other chemical disinfectants.

③ Discarded mercury sphygmomanometer, mercury thermometer.