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The dangers of medical waste have never been more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, as discarded medical masks quickly became a common sight clogging storm drains and washing up on the waves.
The amount of disposable masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment (PPE) has skyrocketed during the pandemic, adding even more plastic and other harmful compounds to the accumulation of medical waste around the world. Disposable COVID-19 tests have also added plastic to the waste problem.
Healthcare had a waste problem even before the pandemic: About 1-2% of municipal waste comes from hospitals, laboratories, and pharmacies, and about 15% of medical waste contains hazardous materials, such as needles, contaminants, and even radioactive materials.
The healthcare industry is a major contributor to global carbon emissions, thanks in part to its use of plastics. It accounts for more than 4% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to a 2022 World Economic Forum report. In most wealthy countries, that total amounts to nearly 10% of domestic emissions, higher than the aviation and shipping industries, the WEF said.
“The pandemic has shown us that our current healthcare delivery model is in disarray,” says Caroline Skolnick, a physician at Northwestern University in the US and co-author of a 2022 paper that argues that “particularly wasteful” ways of doing things in modern medicine are undervalued.
Skolnick said the gradual increase in plastic use in healthcare has led to medical waste. Historically, hospitals have relied on materials like fabric and glass that are relatively easy to recycle and aren’t wrapped in plastic.
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Currently, almost everything is disposable and packaged in plastic, and around 80% of the healthcare sector’s carbon emissions come from single-use plastics. Relying on disposable products is “economically costly and environmentally harmful,” she added.
“Some hospitals have heeded the warnings of the pandemic and said they need to change their practices,” Skolnick said, but they also need “more reusable equipment and a greater focus on low-carbon healthcare delivery.”
According to a report by Business Research Company, the global market for treating this waste is expected to grow from $18.8 billion last year to $19.7 billion in 2024 and reach $24 billion by 2028. “The increasing use of disposable medical products in healthcare facilities is expected to drive the growth of the medical waste management market,” the report said.
Recycling is expected to be a key trend: “Continued medical supply shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic create a need for more sustainable recycling of medical products,” the report argues.
In the United States, medical waste is largely regulated by state governments. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency oversees techniques for cleaning medical waste with chemicals before it’s disposed of, but the end product still ends up in landfills, the EPA says.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, “medical waste was often managed locally, with on-site managers responsible for contracting and managing the services that best fit their needs,” says Chris Ramirez, CEO of California-based Onsite Waste Technologies.
“The pandemic has revealed the shortcomings of this decentralized model,” he cautions. But the industry is embracing data analytics more to reduce waste in hospitals, and there’s “a growing openness to alternative treatments and new technologies,” Ramirez said.
As pressure mounts on traditional methods that risk worsening air quality, such as incinerating medical waste, “the industry needs to adapt, leading to more sustainable and efficient waste management solutions,” he says. “This moment of disruption was necessary and long overdue.”
