What is medical waste? Secure Waste gets this question all the time. Medical waste in Maryland can be defined in many ways. Medical waste is an accumulation of many different waste forms found in the day to day operations of a Maryland Healthcare facility, maybe a doctor’s office, tattoo or maybe a funeral home. Medical, Biohazard, Biomedical and Sharps waste can all fall under the same definition. For more information, review defiant ions below and contact Secure Waste for all your Maryland Medical Waste Removal needs.

Medical waste is all waste materials generated at health care facilities, such as hospitals, clinics, physician's offices, dental practices, blood banks, and veterinary hospitals/clinics, as well as medical research facilities and laboratories.

The Medical Waste tracking Act of 1988 defines medical waste as "any solid waste that is generated in the diagnosis, treatment, or immunization of human beings or animals, in research pertaining thereto, or in the production or testing of biologicals." This definition includes, but is not limited to:

blood-soaked bandages

culture dishes and other glassware

discarded surgical gloves

discarded surgical instruments

discarded needles used to give shots or draw blood (e.g., medical sharps )

cultures, stocks, swabs used to inoculate cultures

removed body organs (e.g., tonsils, appendices, limbs)

discarded lancets

Types of Medical Waste

The United States Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988 defines medical waste as "any solid waste that is generated in the diagnosis, treatment, or immunization of human beings or animals, in research pertaining thereto, or in the production or testing of biologicals." Medical waste can be identified by one of four different categories: infectious, hazardous, radioactive, and general.

• Infectious waste describes waste that has the possibility of causing infections to humans. It can include human or animal tissue (blood or other body parts), blood-soaked bandages, discarded surgical gloves, cultures, stocks, or swabs to inoculate cultures. Much of this category, including human or animal tissue, can also be labeled as pathological waste, which requires specific treatment methods. Pathological waste is either known or suspected to contain pathogens.

•Hazardous waste describes waste that has the possibility to affect humans in non-infectious ways, but which meets federal guidelines for hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Some medical waste is hazardous waste. This includes sharps, which are generally defined as objects that can puncture or lacerate the skin, but can include needles and syringes, discarded surgical instruments such as scalpels and lancets, culture dishes and other glassware. Hazardous waste can also include chemicals, both medical and industrial. Some hazardous waste can also be considered infectious waste, depending on its usage and exposure to human or animal tissue prior to discard. Old drugs, including chemotherapy agents, are sometimes hazardous.

•Radioactive waste can be generated from nuclear medicine treatments, cancer therapies and medical equipment that use radioactive isotopes. Pathological waste that is contaminated with radioactive material is treated as radioactive waste rather than infectious waste.

•General waste makes up at least 85% of all waste generated at medical facilities, and is no different from general household or office waste, and includes paper, plastics, liquids and any other materials that do not fit into the previous three categories.

An alternative classification scheme comes from The World Health Organization. The WHO classifies medical waste into:

•Sharps

•Infectious

•Pathological

•Radioactive

•Pharmaceuticals

•Others (often sanitary waste produced at hospitals)