Monday, 05 September 2005
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POST 00831E : COST OF SHARPS WASTE MANAGEMENT 5 September 2005 _____________________________________ Bob Chen (mailto:[email protected]) from the United States request information about the actual costs of sharps waste management. _____________________________________ One way to implement "the polluter pays" principle with any healthcare program that generates wastes, especially sharps wastes, is to ensure that the program specifically budgets for waste management (e.g., an "overhead" budget line item). This principle should hold true for developing as well as developed countries. One place to begin piloting this idea with the eventual goal of making this practice the norm in developing countries is to encourage externally funded medical projects to include such an overhead to properly manage the costs of the waste sharps the program has generated. The difficulty, however, is to know how much to budget for in advance. What information do TechNet members have about the actual costs for the disposal of healthcare sharps? We would appreciate hearing about the actual costs incurred for the disposal of health care sharps. Any itemization of costs that one can provide would be ideal, as would be information about the type of final disposal system funded (transport to contracted private firm, burial, burning, incineration, sanitary landfill, uncontrolled dumping, etc). From TechNet exchanges we have learned that the South African EPI program reported at TechNet in Zimbabwe, that they budgeted .07 US cents per syringe for transport and incineration by a private firm during a measles campaign; Anthony Battersby has shared his recollections prior to 2001 of Chile and Israel paying approximately US$5.00 to discard a needle box for 100 syringes (.05 per device). In addition, a confidential report in Africa provided information estimates of .02 - .07 US cents per immunization device for disposal in a lined pit, excluding labor, transport, or supervision. WHO's work by Rozenn Le Mentect in the Ukraine suggested that it would cost a facility .02-.06 U.S. cents per device to send or sell it to a recycler who would do additional processing and then sell the plastics. We would be grateful for any additional relevant information that might be shared on TechNet about the costs of disposal of medical sharps. Thank you in advance. Bob Chen M.D., M.A. Leader, Medical Transmissions Team HIV Prevention Global Aids Program Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Visit the TECHNET21 Website at http://www.technet21.org You will find instructions to subscribe, a direct access to archives, links to reference documents and other features. ______________________________________________________________________________ To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message to : mailto:[email protected] Leave the subject area BLANK In the message body, write unsubscribe TECHNET21E ______________________________________________________________________________ The World Health Organization and UNICEF support TechNet21. The TechNet21 e-Forum is a communication/information tool for generation of ideas on how to improve immunization services. It is moderated by Claude Letarte and is hosted in cooperation with the Centre de coopération internationale en santé et développement, Québec, Canada (http://www.ccisd.org) ______________________________________________________________________________
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