The figures of this section are based on a national statistic conducted in 1997 on the current situation of hospitals in Lebanon. It should be noted, however, that most of the results are discretionary.
Only 18% of the hospitals claimed to know the amount of waste they issue, while 75% admitted they did not know anything.
On average, each bed produces about 5.4 kg of waste per day, about 1,05 kg of which is a mixture of contaminated waste and sharp machines (19.5% of the total waste).
Thus, it can be concluded that the total hospital waste produced in Lebanon is 45,846 kg / day, about 9,000 of which are considered hazardous.
Seventy-three percent of hospitals claim that they produce their infectious waste, but the study shows that these screening rules are often unclear and lead to a half-counting of the screening process.
19% of hospitals do not produce their contaminated waste, and 8% of hospitals have not given any answer because they do not consider the issue as important yet.
Only 67% of these hospitals are concerned with separation of sharps from the rest of the waste, and only 36% of them produce expired medicines.
In general, the disposal of waste available to hospitals is as follows: outdoor burning, municipal waste (often dumped in random dumps), disposal in nature, incineration in a hospital incinerator or through agreement with a waste collection company, In this case the final fate of these wastes remains unknown.
All these solutions are totally unacceptable. Landfill without recourse to preliminary treatment is very dangerous because the probability of soil contamination and the leakage of toxic liquid from landfill to groundwater reservoirs is large.
Lebanon does not have any specialized institutions known to have facilities or appropriate means of disposal of hospital waste.
Currently about 14% of hazardous waste is burned in hospital incinerators.
14 of the hospitals (19%) have very old incinerators, of which one hospital knows the quantities of waste treated by its incinerator.
Of these 14, 12 are made up to at least 15 years ago. Only two of the hospitals know their Holocaust brand, and six claim to know the heat of the combustion (two of which were too unrealistically high).
Five hospitals claim to be washing the smoke from their crematoria, and two other hospitals claim to be cleaning the dust of their crematoria.
One example is the American University Hospital, one of the leading hospitals in Beirut, which now runs a very old, contaminated incinerator and plans to install a new incinerator.
The hospital claims that it adheres to environmental standards, but so far has not developed a clear plan to properly sort its waste, and is still far from adopting a policy for phasing out hazardous materials in PVC and mercury.
The absence of explicit knowledge of the danger of incineration by the concerned parties is very flawed. It should be noted that any "new" Holocaust will not solve the problem because even the "highly developed" incinerators will emit toxic substances.
Whenever the chimneys of the Holocaust were clean, and hence their emissions monitored, the ashes of the Holocaust were poisonous.
This poisonous ash will end in the landfill.
The alarming fate of eleven percent of hazardous hospital waste is unknown. So their impact on the environment and public health is also not specified.
It is also worrisome to summarize this study that a quarter of hazardous hospital waste (infectious waste, sharp machines and expired medicines) are treated in the worst possible way, namely, outdoor burning.
Only 18% of the hospitals claimed to know the amount of waste they issue, while 75% admitted they did not know anything.
On average, each bed produces about 5.4 kg of waste per day, about 1,05 kg of which is a mixture of contaminated waste and sharp machines (19.5% of the total waste).
Thus, it can be concluded that the total hospital waste produced in Lebanon is 45,846 kg / day, about 9,000 of which are considered hazardous.
Seventy-three percent of hospitals claim that they produce their infectious waste, but the study shows that these screening rules are often unclear and lead to a half-counting of the screening process.
19% of hospitals do not produce their contaminated waste, and 8% of hospitals have not given any answer because they do not consider the issue as important yet.
Only 67% of these hospitals are concerned with separation of sharps from the rest of the waste, and only 36% of them produce expired medicines.
In general, the disposal of waste available to hospitals is as follows: outdoor burning, municipal waste (often dumped in random dumps), disposal in nature, incineration in a hospital incinerator or through agreement with a waste collection company, In this case the final fate of these wastes remains unknown.
All these solutions are totally unacceptable. Landfill without recourse to preliminary treatment is very dangerous because the probability of soil contamination and the leakage of toxic liquid from landfill to groundwater reservoirs is large.
Lebanon does not have any specialized institutions known to have facilities or appropriate means of disposal of hospital waste.
Currently about 14% of hazardous waste is burned in hospital incinerators.
14 of the hospitals (19%) have very old incinerators, of which one hospital knows the quantities of waste treated by its incinerator.
Of these 14, 12 are made up to at least 15 years ago. Only two of the hospitals know their Holocaust brand, and six claim to know the heat of the combustion (two of which were too unrealistically high).
Five hospitals claim to be washing the smoke from their crematoria, and two other hospitals claim to be cleaning the dust of their crematoria.
One example is the American University Hospital, one of the leading hospitals in Beirut, which now runs a very old, contaminated incinerator and plans to install a new incinerator.
The hospital claims that it adheres to environmental standards, but so far has not developed a clear plan to properly sort its waste, and is still far from adopting a policy for phasing out hazardous materials in PVC and mercury.
The absence of explicit knowledge of the danger of incineration by the concerned parties is very flawed. It should be noted that any "new" Holocaust will not solve the problem because even the "highly developed" incinerators will emit toxic substances.
Whenever the chimneys of the Holocaust were clean, and hence their emissions monitored, the ashes of the Holocaust were poisonous.
This poisonous ash will end in the landfill.
The alarming fate of eleven percent of hazardous hospital waste is unknown. So their impact on the environment and public health is also not specified.
It is also worrisome to summarize this study that a quarter of hazardous hospital waste (infectious waste, sharp machines and expired medicines) are treated in the worst possible way, namely, outdoor burning.
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