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A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment

Health-Care Risk Waste (HCRW) treatment protects the environment and lives. HCRW is waste from patient diagnostics, immunization, surgery, and therapy. HCRW must be treated before disposal since it pollutes, spreads illnesses, and causes harm. However, waste treatment increases the healthcare sector...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zikhathile, Thobile, Atagana, Harrison, Bwapwa, Joseph, Sawtell, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9565833/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36231269
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911967
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author Zikhathile, Thobile
Atagana, Harrison
Bwapwa, Joseph
Sawtell, David
author_facet Zikhathile, Thobile
Atagana, Harrison
Bwapwa, Joseph
Sawtell, David
author_sort Zikhathile, Thobile
collection PubMed
description Health-Care Risk Waste (HCRW) treatment protects the environment and lives. HCRW is waste from patient diagnostics, immunization, surgery, and therapy. HCRW must be treated before disposal since it pollutes, spreads illnesses, and causes harm. However, waste treatment increases the healthcare sector’s carbon footprint, making the healthcare sector a major contributor to anthropogenic climate change. This is because treating HCRW pollutes the environment and requires a lot of energy. Treating HCRW is crucial, but its risks are not well-studied. Unintentionally, treating HCRW leads to climate change. Due to frequent climate-related disasters, present climate-change mitigation strategies are insufficient. All sectors, including healthcare, must act to mitigate and prevent future harms. Healthcare can reduce its carbon footprint to help the environment. All contributing elements must be investigated because healthcare facilities contribute to climate change. We start by evaluating the environmental impact of different HCRW treatment technologies and suggesting strategies to make treatments more sustainable, cost-effective, and reliable to lower the carbon footprint.
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spelling pubmed-95658332022-10-15 A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment Zikhathile, Thobile Atagana, Harrison Bwapwa, Joseph Sawtell, David Int J Environ Res Public Health Review Health-Care Risk Waste (HCRW) treatment protects the environment and lives. HCRW is waste from patient diagnostics, immunization, surgery, and therapy. HCRW must be treated before disposal since it pollutes, spreads illnesses, and causes harm. However, waste treatment increases the healthcare sector’s carbon footprint, making the healthcare sector a major contributor to anthropogenic climate change. This is because treating HCRW pollutes the environment and requires a lot of energy. Treating HCRW is crucial, but its risks are not well-studied. Unintentionally, treating HCRW leads to climate change. Due to frequent climate-related disasters, present climate-change mitigation strategies are insufficient. All sectors, including healthcare, must act to mitigate and prevent future harms. Healthcare can reduce its carbon footprint to help the environment. All contributing elements must be investigated because healthcare facilities contribute to climate change. We start by evaluating the environmental impact of different HCRW treatment technologies and suggesting strategies to make treatments more sustainable, cost-effective, and reliable to lower the carbon footprint. MDPI 2022-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9565833/ /pubmed/36231269 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911967 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Zikhathile, Thobile
Atagana, Harrison
Bwapwa, Joseph
Sawtell, David
A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment
title A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment
title_full A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment
title_fullStr A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment
title_full_unstemmed A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment
title_short A Review of the Impact That Healthcare Risk Waste Treatment Technologies Have on the Environment
title_sort review of the impact that healthcare risk waste treatment technologies have on the environment
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9565833/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36231269
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911967
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