Medical Waste from COVID-19 Pandemic—A Systematic Review of Management and Environmental Impacts in Australia

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created a global medical emergency. The unforeseen occurrence of a pandemic of this magnitude has resulted in overwhelming levels of medical waste and raises questions about management and disposal practices, and environmental impacts. The amount of medical waste generated from COVID-19 since the outbreak is estimated to be 2.6 million tons/day worldwide. In Australia, heaps of single-use gowns, facemasks/face shields, aprons, gloves, goggles, sanitizers, sharps, and syringes are disposed everyday as a result of the pandemic. Moreover, the establishment of new home/hotel quarantine facilities and isolation/quarantine centres in various Australian states and territories have increased the risks of transmission among people in these facilities and the likelihoods of general waste becoming contaminated with medical waste. This warrants the need to examine management and disposal practices implemented to reduce the transmission and spread of the virus. This study reviews the various management and disposal practices adopted in Australia for dealing with medical waste from the COVID-19 pandemic and their impacts on public health and the environment. To achieve the aims of this study, prior studies from 2019–2021 from various databases are collected and analysed. The study focuses on generation of medical waste from COVID-19, management and disposal methods, current problems/challenges and environmental and public health impacts. Considering the enormous risks involved and the significance of appropriate handling and disposal of medical waste from COVID-19, this study provides insights on short and long term responses towards managing COVID-19 waste in Australia. The study contributes to Australia’s efforts against the transmission and spread of COVID-19 and provides recommendations for the development of workable and sustainable strategies for mitigating similar pandemics in the future.

A hybrid machine learning-mathematical programming optimization approach for municipal solid waste management during the pandemic

“…Social distancing and the change in lifestyle in general during the pandemic were also reflected in an increase in the use of disposable plastics (Haque & Fan, 2022 ; Igalavithana et al, 2022 ), as well as in food waste mainly in large cities (Çavuş et al, 2022 ; Iranmanesh et al, 2022 ). In developed countries, different strategies were implemented to deal with these new amounts of waste, new waste treatment facilities were installed, and policies were implemented in favor of prioritizing the treatment of medical waste (Andeobu et al, 2022 ). However, in underdeveloped countries there was no planning that could mitigate the problem represented by these new rates of generation of toxic waste; therefore, a large part of the waste generated ended up in open-air landfills, which represents great health and environmental risk for the region (Masud et al, 2023 ).…”

“…In recent studies, it has not been possible to determine if infectious waste plays a critical role in the distribution of the virus; however, the deposition of different medical residues in the water and soil ecosystem can cause microbial transformations, which represents a potential threat to the public health system (Ekhaise et al, 2023 ). For this reason, the enormous amounts of waste generated during the pandemic make processing this waste a priority (Andeobu et al, 2022 ; Dharmaraj et al, 2021 ). To minimize the environmental and social impact in the short and long term, implementing efficient waste management strategies is necessary to reduce the long-term effects that the pandemic may generate, solving this challenge and creating technological techniques and knowledge will enable the safe treatment of municipal waste in the current pandemic, and above all to generate prevention strategies in the face of the possibility of future pandemics (Skrzyniarz et al, 2022 ).…”

“…As part of the search for a definitive solution to MSW management, different alternatives have been explored, with artificial intelligence-based (AI-based) methodologies being one of the most innovative (Andeobu et al, 2022 ). Smart waste management is a strategy that makes use of advanced technologies to dispose of waste profitably and efficiently.…”

The use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and associated environmental challenges: A study on Dhaka, Bangladesh

“…The estimated daily plastic waste generated rounds about 1.6 million tons from 3.4 billion discarded single-use facemasks ( Benson et al., 2021a ). Alongside a massive surge in plastic pollution, the PPE wastes may also become disease vectors introducing new pathogenic virus or bacteria ( Noman et al., 2021 ; and Andeobu et al., 2022 ).…”

A Review of Recycling and Waste Management Systems Through the Lens of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Furthermore, since protective measures such as mask wearing, traffic restrictions, social distancing, and home isolation have been globally implemented to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 [18], it has been found that waste has increased in numerous countries due to the intensification of said measures [19]. Moreover, several studies have also shown that medical waste has increased significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic [20,21]. This is mainly to sustain the enormous demand for personal protective equipment which includes face masks, gloves, gowns, etc.…”