Death is but a natural phenomenon. And following the death of an individual, it is important to cremate or dispose of the body properly. But if you do not follow this, it could lead to many severe consequences.

That’s what funeral homes are actually for.

And though you cannot call the bodies of your loved ones a ‘waste’, the fact is that all kinds of funeral homes generate some amount of wastes and these can be hazardous in nature.

No wonder, all these funeral homes too need the assistance of biohazardous waste disposal agencies to manage their generated waste.

Also Read: Medical Wastes At Funeral Homes And Its Effective Management

Here are some important points which you need to know relating the funeral home medical wastes and how these funeral homes get assistance:

The Major Funeral Methods

Types of Funeral Home Wastes

OSHA Regulations & Funeral Homes

Segmenting Funeral Home Wastes

How To Ensure Safety

Let us know and understand all these points in a bit detail:

Major Funeral Methods:

In the USA, the most common form of body disposal is burial, and cremation follows it swiftly.

While burial is an absolutely simple process, cremation actually takes a lot of essential elements into consideration. In this, the body enters a disposal chamber in a container with a garment, and it gets subjected to natural gas which heats the same.

The exhaust gases and smoke are not allowed to pass out and enter a scrubber where they get absorbed.

If the body contains any artificial devices such as pacemakers etc., these are removed in advance. And without any doubts, all such blood-smeared products contribute to biohazardous wastes.

Also Read: Why Glass (Even Unbroken) Is Considered A Form Of Sharps Waste

In addition, the residue left after the cremation of a body ranges anywhere from 3 to 6 pounds which need to be disposed of effectively.

Types of Funeral Home Wastes:

When we talk about funeral homes, we may roughly include cemeteries, morgues, and mortuaries etc.

No wonder, funeral homes too generate a considerable amount of waste and these are varied in nature. For instance, some of the major types of medical wastes that emerge out of the funeral home are as follows:

Dressings, swabs, and other fabrics

Scalpels

Scissors

Incision needles

Formaldehyde

Methanol,

Cannulas

Trocars

Arterial tubes

Phenol etc.

And broadly, these wastes can be grouped under categories such as:

Chemical Wastes

Sharps wastes

Pharmaceutical Wastes

Radioactive Wastes

Chemotherapy wastes etc.

OSHA Regulations & Funeral Homes:

The OSHA or ‘Occupational Safety and Health Administration’ is an agency that provides healthcare training and clearly states the ways to mitigate hazardous wastes.

According to OSHA, all the employees which are directly or indirectly subjected to bloodborne pathogens or infectious body fluids must possess proper OSHA training. This encompasses outlining all the exposure control plans and ways to stay protected from the infectious wastes.

You can get the best OSHA training assistance from a reputed medical waste disposal agency in your region which would also help you deal with all kinds of generated medical wastes.

Segmenting Funeral Home Wastes:

As aforementioned, funeral homes generate various types of wastes and not each of them could be added to a single container.

Therefore, as stated above, you need to have separate waste disposal container for each of these and in this too, a good and licensed medical waste management agency can offer great assistance.

Also Read: Why Medical Waste Disposal Is Required?

For instance, if the funeral homes discard sharps wastes, it is important to store them properly in dedicated sharps containers so that they do not cause any harm to the living beings that come in contact with them.

How To Ensure Safety:

As informed on every step, funeral homes can get the best assistance from a good medical waste disposal agency such as ‘Secure Waste Inc.’

All such agencies offer ‘A to Z’ assistance in terms of generated medical wastes and prevent any form of troubles which arise due to negligently discarded funeral home wastes.

Key Takeaways From Above:

Here are the major points that we learned from all that we mentioned above:

Funeral wastes are not at all simple and could be hazardous in nature. Thus, you need an expert medical waste management agency to take care of these.

Funeral homes could be varied in nature and they discard various kinds of wastes.

It is important to identify & segregate every kind of waste generated and store it properly in the designated container.

You can get every assistance that you need from a reputed medical waste management agency.

All such medical waste agencies provide waste storage containers, waste-disposal documents, and are responsible for every action right from picking up the filled containers to disposing of them safely.

Funeral homes too are governed by OSHA regulations and the employees at such places must be provided proper OSHA training for the best outcomes.

People who handle hazardous wastes emerging from the funeral homes must use personal protective equipment (PPE) to stay protected from any form of medical troubles.

So if you are concerned with a funeral home, ensure to consult a good medical waste management agency such as ‘Secure Waste Inc.’ and you can ensure to stay away from all the medical and legal hazardous waste troubles.