Emergency response to the explosive growth of health care wastes during COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China

During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a worldwide pandemic, the security management of health care wastes (HCWs) has attracted increasing concern due to their high risk. In this paper, the integrated management of HCWs in Wuhan, the first COVID-19-outbreaking city with over ten millions of people completely locking down, was collected, investigated and analyzed. During the pandemic, municipal solid wastes (MSWs) from designated hospitals, Fangcang shelter hospitals, isolation locations and residential areas (e.g. face masks) were collected and categorized as HCWs due to the high infectiousness and strong survivability of COVID-19, and accordingly the average production of HCWs per 1000 persons in Wuhan explosively increased from 3.64 kg/d to 27.32 kg/d. Segregation, collection, storage, transportation and disposal of HCWs in Wuhan were discussed and outlined. Stationary facilities, mobile facilities, co-processing facilities (Incineration plants for MSWs) and nonlocal disposal were consecutively utilized to improve the disposal capacity, from 50 tons/d to 280.1 tons/d. Results indicated that stationary and co-processing facilities were preferential for HCWs disposal, while mobile facilities and nonlocal disposal acted as supplementary approaches. Overall, the improved system of HCWs management could meet the challenge of the explosive growth of HCWs production during COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan. Furthermore, these practices could provide a reference for other densely populated metropolises.