Medical Waste Management in Turkey


Creative Commons License

Arıkan O. A., Öztürk İ., Demir İ., Maçin K. E.

International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology, Belgrade, Sırbistan, 28 Eylül - 02 Ekim 2016, ss.91-98

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Belgrade
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Sırbistan
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.91-98
  • İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Medical wastes from health care institutions pose risks for public health therefore proper management of medical waste is very important. The purpose of this study is to present the general situation of medical waste management system in Turkey. In this context, first definition and amount of medical waste are given. Then, medical waste treatment methods are explained. Finally, medical waste management in Turkey is evaluated. The amount of medical waste generated in Turkey is approximately 1.5 kg/bed-day and 80000 tons/year. Considerable amount of medical wastes was disposed to landfills and covered with lime until 2009. Since 2010, sterilized medical wastes were sent to municipal landfills in a separate cell as a general practice. Besides the sterilization of medical wastes, incineration method is also rarely used. Medical waste disposal costs (excluding tax) ranged between 0.5-0.9 (average 0.7) €/kg for metropolitan municipalities and 0.6-1.1 (average 0.8) €/kg for other municipalities according to 2015 data. It is suggested that reduction of medical waste disposal costs is possible via removal of municipality cuts and decrease the amount of municipal solid waste in medical waste.