www.Ups tatePhys i c i ansSC . com | www.Hea l thL i nksUps tate. com | 67 For the rest of the 2020s, as COVID-related illnesses and viable treatments battle for the upper hand, medical waste is not only looming, it could easily end up deciding whether we’ll face more global concerns or enjoy the benefits of medical stability. “In terms of the scale, it’s massive,” said Maggie Montgomery, technical officer with the World Health Organization. “We know that 1 in 3 care facilities globally before the pandemic lacked ways to safely segregate and treat waste.” “[Separation] is very important because only 20% of health care waste is infectious and hazardous and requires extra care and treatment,” Montgomery said. “So we have the combined double burden of already weak systems for waste management, coupled by the fact that health workers are extremely overburdened with increased patient loads and can’t manage the existing waste, let alone extra waste.” Examples of medical waste include blood, bandages, disposable masks, body parts removed during surgery and medical sharps – the WHO considers needles and syringes to be a substantial part of the problem because an estimated 16 billion injections are administered annually worldwide. Not all of the needles and syringes are properly disposed of afterward. “In 2020 alone, 4.5 trillion additional disposable masks were thrown away by the public, resulting in 6 million extra tons of waste,” Montgomery said.
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