Assessment of medical solid waste generation rates for teaching hospitals in Baghdad city

Abstract

Medical solid waste occupies great importance in all the countries and communities because of the extreme seriousness on living organisms and the environment, this study focused on this type of waste through calculating average generation rate (G.R.) of medical solid waste in Baghdad, Iraq.  Two teaching hospitals of different bed capacities in the capital of Iraq were investigated during four months. The collected data were analyzed by using IBM SPSS statistic 23 software, result showed the medical solid waste generation rate at Al-Kadhimiya teaching hospital (1.007 kg/patient/day, 0.436 kg/bed/day) was higher than Al-Yarmouk teaching hospital (0.916 kg/patient/day, 0.682 kg/bed/day). In Al-Kadhimiya teaching hospital, the generation rate of medical solid waste based on the number of beds is small due to the fact that the emergency with a large bed capacity of 100 beds compared to 32 beds at Al- Yarmouk teaching hospital. The generation rate of medical solid waste based on the number of patients in Al- Kadhimiya teaching hospital is high because that the number of patients coming to Al- Kadhimiya teaching hospital is less than that of Al-Yarmouk teaching hospital.