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Assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies methodology

BACKGROUND: Improper treatment of infectious waste can cause numerous adverse environmental and health effects such as transmission of diseases through health personnel and other susceptible groups,who come in contact with such wastes. On the other hand, selection of appropriate treatment alternativ...

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Autores principales: Rafiee, Ata, Yaghmaeian, Kamyar, Hoseini, Mohammad, Parmy, Saeid, Mahvi, Amirhosein, Yunesian, Masud, Khaefi, Mehran, Nabizadeh, Ramin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4884406/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27239313
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40201-016-0251-1
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author Rafiee, Ata
Yaghmaeian, Kamyar
Hoseini, Mohammad
Parmy, Saeid
Mahvi, Amirhosein
Yunesian, Masud
Khaefi, Mehran
Nabizadeh, Ramin
author_facet Rafiee, Ata
Yaghmaeian, Kamyar
Hoseini, Mohammad
Parmy, Saeid
Mahvi, Amirhosein
Yunesian, Masud
Khaefi, Mehran
Nabizadeh, Ramin
author_sort Rafiee, Ata
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Improper treatment of infectious waste can cause numerous adverse environmental and health effects such as transmission of diseases through health personnel and other susceptible groups,who come in contact with such wastes. On the other hand, selection of appropriate treatment alternatives in infectious waste management has become a challenging task for public health authorities especially in developing countries. The objective of this paper is to select the best infectious waste treatment alternative by the modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies (SAT) methodology, developed by the International Environmental Technology Center of the United Nations Environment Program (IETC-UNEP). METHODS: SAT methodology consists of three main components, including screening, scoping and detailed assessment. In screening, different infectious waste treatment alternatives undergo screening using the finalized environmental and technical criteria. Short-listed treatment options from the previous step, then go through the comprehensive scoping and detailed assessment (2nd and 3rd components) which is more qualitative and quantitative in nature. An empirical case in Tehran, the largest city in Iran, is provided to illustrate the potential of the proposed methodology. RESULTS: According to the final score, “Hydroclave”, was the most suitable infectious treatment technology. The ranking order of the treatment alternatives were “Autoclave with a shredder”, “Autoclave”, “Central Incineration” and “chemical treatment” on the basis of technical, economical, social and environmental aspects and their related criteria. CONCLUSIONS: According to the results it could be concluded that the top ranking technologies basically have higher scores in all the aspects. Hence it is easier to arrive at a decision for the final technology selection based on the principles of sustainability.
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spelling pubmed-48844062016-05-29 Assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies methodology Rafiee, Ata Yaghmaeian, Kamyar Hoseini, Mohammad Parmy, Saeid Mahvi, Amirhosein Yunesian, Masud Khaefi, Mehran Nabizadeh, Ramin J Environ Health Sci Eng Research Article BACKGROUND: Improper treatment of infectious waste can cause numerous adverse environmental and health effects such as transmission of diseases through health personnel and other susceptible groups,who come in contact with such wastes. On the other hand, selection of appropriate treatment alternatives in infectious waste management has become a challenging task for public health authorities especially in developing countries. The objective of this paper is to select the best infectious waste treatment alternative by the modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies (SAT) methodology, developed by the International Environmental Technology Center of the United Nations Environment Program (IETC-UNEP). METHODS: SAT methodology consists of three main components, including screening, scoping and detailed assessment. In screening, different infectious waste treatment alternatives undergo screening using the finalized environmental and technical criteria. Short-listed treatment options from the previous step, then go through the comprehensive scoping and detailed assessment (2nd and 3rd components) which is more qualitative and quantitative in nature. An empirical case in Tehran, the largest city in Iran, is provided to illustrate the potential of the proposed methodology. RESULTS: According to the final score, “Hydroclave”, was the most suitable infectious treatment technology. The ranking order of the treatment alternatives were “Autoclave with a shredder”, “Autoclave”, “Central Incineration” and “chemical treatment” on the basis of technical, economical, social and environmental aspects and their related criteria. CONCLUSIONS: According to the results it could be concluded that the top ranking technologies basically have higher scores in all the aspects. Hence it is easier to arrive at a decision for the final technology selection based on the principles of sustainability. BioMed Central 2016-05-27 /pmc/articles/PMC4884406/ /pubmed/27239313 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40201-016-0251-1 Text en © Rafiee et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rafiee, Ata
Yaghmaeian, Kamyar
Hoseini, Mohammad
Parmy, Saeid
Mahvi, Amirhosein
Yunesian, Masud
Khaefi, Mehran
Nabizadeh, Ramin
Assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies methodology
title Assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies methodology
title_full Assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies methodology
title_fullStr Assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies methodology
title_full_unstemmed Assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies methodology
title_short Assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified Sustainability Assessment of Technologies methodology
title_sort assessment and selection of the best treatment alternative for infectious waste by modified sustainability assessment of technologies methodology
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4884406/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27239313
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40201-016-0251-1
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