Healthcare Waste Management

As the global healthcare system expands, including the increasing success of immunization efforts, this inevitably leads to a growing amount of healthcare waste (HCW). Certain types of HCW can pose significant environmental and public health risks due to its toxic, infectious, and other hazardous properties. It is important to recognize that immunization activities are part of the overall health system, and healthcare waste management (HCWM) must be coordinated across many entities, different departments, and, often, even the private sector.

Looking at various countries around the world, one finds that there are many different types of health systems, thus many different types of waste management systems as well. Thus, HCWM is a system that must be planned and coordinated across multiple stakeholders and programs. Immunization leaders must closely coordinate with the government entities responsible for waste management to best link resources and technologies in ensuring best practices for managing healthcare waste.

This page provides a list of resources related to healthcare waste management, as well as materials developed by local governments, multinational organizations, and the private sector. The aim is to inform and guide constituents in the public and private sector. Additionally, this page sponsors a constructive dialogue on everything from what it takes to design an HCWM plan, to applying best practices between existing HCWM models among countries in different contexts.

Apropos of the multifaceted nature of HCWM, this page’s resources have been organized according to the following categories:

• People
• Process
• Technology
• Project Innovations
• Academic Research
• National Level Policies and Strategies

People

This is a set of resources that supports training and capacity building for health workers involved in HCWM.

Process

This is a set of resources that is meant to guide countries and organizations designing plans for HCWM.

Technology

This is a set of resources that describes the different technologies currently employed in HCWM.

Project innovations

This is a set of resources that showcases the various and successful innovations for HCWM that countries have designed or implemented.

Academic research

This is a set of resources that provides insight from the academic world as to HCWM.

National level policies and strategies