Performance of a Large-Scale Medical Waste Incinerator in a Referral Hospital

Abstract

The aim of the study was to analyze the performance of large scale incinerator installed in a referral hospital. The study involved weighing and loading infectious waste of different composition (sharps and other waste), recording temperatures in the primary and secondary chamber with time, fuel used and collecting and weighing the bottom ash for 65 days. The analysis shows that the incinerator on average uses 362 L/day (45 L/h) to incinerate 945 kg of medical waste (40.8 kg/day of sharps waste and 904 kg/day of other waste), generating 51.2 kg of ash daily. The observed fuel consumption rate was too high necessitating corrective action. The average weight reduction was 94.6%. The study shows that the average sharps waste composition for medical waste incinerated was 4.3% and other waste was 95.7%. The incinerator capacity ranged between 100 and 130 kg/h. The fuel effectiveness ranged between 2.0 and 3.0 liters of diesel per kg of waste incinerated. The fuel effectiveness increased linearly with total waste incinerated and incinerator capacity, respectively, depending on the fuel consumption rate.

Assessment of the heavy metal - levels in the incinerators bottom-ash from different hospitals in Dares Salaam

“…The result from investigation reveals that there was a poor segregation at the source of generation of infectious and sharps waste by use of color coding system. This was contrary to what was observed earlier (Matee and Manyele, 2015). Other studies in different African countries show that healthcare waste is either not properly or insufficiently segregated or not segregated at all.…”

“…This is caused by oxidation of iron bars due to rusting and high temperature corrosion (Xu et al, 2016). Moreover, the iron and steel content in the incinerated waste is also high due to many items made of iron or steel entering the healthcare waste stream as reported also by Matee and Manyele (2015) and Manyele et al (2011). Results show that MNH has the highest release of metals attributable to the large quantities of waste generated per day and thus per year.…”

“…The Arsenic compounds found its way in many applications including wood preservatives (such as, chromium copper arsenate); electronic appliances (such as, semiconductors); in agricultural products (such as, fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, and silvicides); nonferrous alloys; animal feed additives; glass; ceramics; and dyeing and printing (USEPA, 1996;Matee and Manyele, 2015). It is most commonly found sulfide ores as arsenopyrite.…”

“…According to Matee and Manyele (2015), the proper healthcare waste management starts from generation stage followed by segregation followed by collection, transport and lastly disposal of hospital waste must be properly managed so as to minimize the health risks to patients, healthcare providers, the general public and safety of the surrounding environment. The improper disposal of medical waste including bottom ash normally sent to the landfill may amplify the health risk by spreading infections and of exposure to toxic chemicals like heavy metals.…”

Fuel Consumption Investigation for Quran Disposal Incinerator System

“…Reducing cycle time of the incineration and limiting the moisture content of the waste can help in minimizing fuel consumption. Low fuel consumption can lead to higher fuel effectiveness of the system (Matee & Manyele, 2015). While (Hassan et al, 2015) never claimed the effective level of their Quran incinerator system, they reported that for the maximum 2 Kg capacity, they require 60 minutes of burning time with the total fuel consumption of 1.1 Kg.…”