As an employee and employer, it is a legal duty to ensure pharmaceutical waste management. This waste should be managed, stored, and disposed of safely and suitably. As an employer, the duty of care is assigned. This duty should be towards nature and the environment.
What is Biohazard Waste?
Biohazard waste is also known as biomedical waste or hospital waste. It is any waste that contains infectious materials. It is a biological material that can taint an object or even an individual that comes in contact with it.
Examples of Biohazardous waste
- Infectious waste
- Blood
- Blood product
- Contaminated personal protective equipment (PPE)
- IV Tubing
- Blood transfusion bags
- Suction canisters
- Cultures
- Stocks
- Any laboratory agent that may be contaminated with any infectious disease.
- Waste is produced in the room of a patient diagnosed with an infectious disease.
- Empty vials from vaccine use
- Animal waste
- Waste resulting from veterinary procedures.
- Pathological waste includes waste materials from a biopsy procedure.
- Sharp waste, like- needles, scalpels and broken glass.
- Recombinant DNA and RNA.
- Laboratory items.
- Liquid medical waste.
All these items should be properly segregated and handled with the utmost care. The microorganisms in this waste can potentially affect the health and wellness of people getting in contact with these. They thrive in hospital environments and outpatient clinics, physicians, and maybe in our local dental office. Therefore, everyone should be very careful about pharmaceutical waste management.
How to Identify a Biohazardous Waste?
Anyone employed in the healthcare environment must be able to identify biohazard waste and take appropriate steps to isolate, contain, and dispose of it. It is the start of compliant and safe Pharmaceutical waste management. It includes everyone from management who perform maintenance activity, housekeeping, and medical waste disposal personnel. When we think about biohazardous waste, it is very important to think not of an item or object to classify. But rather than the exposure an item has had to contamination. While classifying hazardous waste, the first few things that come to mind are soiled gowns, soiled bed sheets or linen from an isolation environment, bandages, and sharps, including syringes, pipettes, or scalpel blades. Apart from this, biohazard waste can include any form of equipment that has contacted a potentially infected individual. Surgical and procedural tools and devices used to treat an infected individual or the items that have come into contact or been contaminated like gloves, gowns, gauze or any tools or implements used to treat a person who might have been with the dangerous pathogens.
