Medical waste: the dark side of healthcare

Abstract Hospitals and other health facilities generate an ever-increasing amount of waste, approximately 15% of which may be infectious, toxic, or radioactive. The World Health Organization has been addressing the issue since the 1980s. After initially focusing on high-income countries, it then focused on low-income countries, with unsafe disposal methods in landfills and inadequate incinerators as major concerns. Gradually, the understanding of the issue has undergone several shifts, including from a focus on the component of medical waste considered “hazardous” to all forms of waste, and from accepting medical waste as a necessary downside of high-quality healthcare to seeing the avoidance of healthcare waste as a component of high quality healthcare.

摘要 医院及其他医疗卫生机构产生的废弃物总量持续攀升，其中约15%可能具有感染性、毒性或放射性。世界卫生组织（World Health Organization，WHO）自20世纪80年代起便着手应对这一问题。该组织最初聚焦高收入国家，随后将工作重点转向低收入国家，彼时的主要关切为垃圾填埋场的不安全处置方式与不合格焚烧设施。随着对该问题的认知历经数次转变：从仅关注被认定为"危险"的医疗废物组分，拓展至覆盖所有类型的医疗废弃物；从将医疗废物视为优质医疗服务必然产生的弊端，转变为将避免医疗废物视作优质医疗服务的组成部分。