POST 00830E : DESTRUCTION OF PLASTIC SYRINGES
Follow-up on Posts 00819E and 00824E
3 September 2005
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This posting contains four contributions. Although posted late due to
translation constraints, as the campaign in Côte d'Ivoire is over, they are
of great interest for anyone concerned with similar problems. The first is
from Ville Lehto (mailto:[email protected]) from Finland. The
second is from Bibata Paré (mailto:[email protected]) from Burkina Faso.
The third is from Anil Varshney (mailto:[email protected]) from India
and the last from Sridharan R. (?) (mailto:[email protected]) from
India as well.
More contributions on this topic are to be published in a few days, not to
make postings too heavy.
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Cher Godiskine,
I saw your question about incineration of plastic syringes on TechNet21
post. I’m sorry that it took this long to answer, but I have been extremely
busy lately. Unfortunately my level of French is so low that I have to
reply you in English.
If I understood right, you have an intention to incinerate the plastic
syringes in an incinerator that is used to produce electricity from pressed
seed fibers, and you would like to know whether it is suitable for burning
syringes. Here are some answers to your questions:
Temperature: The optimal temperature for incineration of plastics is
850°C-1150°C. Below 800°C you will produce dioxins and furans which are
very harmful and persistent pollutants that accumulate in the food chains.
Furthermore, reaching the 850 C is not enough, but you have to keep the
flue gas at that temperature at least 2 seconds. On the other hand, when
the temperature rises above 1150°C the NOx emissions (nitrogen oxydes) rise
significantly.
Calorific properties: The properties of the syringes and safety boxes vary
a bit according to the manufacturer and the used materials. As the mass you
are going to treat is quite heterogenic, it is not easy to define the exact
calorific value. You should find out all the materials and their mass
proportions used in the incinerated products. I'm not aware of the
calorific values of the seed fibers, but they might be different from the
combination of syringes and safety boxes.
Smoke: There are two factors that determine the emissions: process balance
and the input (fuel + waste). If the process is in good balance
(temperature, residence time…) for the particular waste, the results are
clean. If it is not in balance you will create emissions. What are the
chemical properties of the smoke depend on the input. Reaching the balance
is not simple. If there is variation in the characteristics of input, you
either have to create a wide tolerance for the process, or control the
process parameters. This is not easy to do. For us it took three years of
extensive testing to find the balance.
If you have any questions, or you are interested in getting more
information, please feel free to contact me (you may reply in French)! You
can find more (in French too) in our website www.mediburner.com.
Bien des choses,
Mr. Ville Lehto
Marketing Manager
Mediburner Ltd
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Hello Godiskine,
I do not know if it is a good thing to destroy health-care waste in a food
processing factory, even though the temperatures might be adequate.
We had a similar campaign in 2004, covering the whole of Burkina Faso, but
we sought help from a local foundry. This company is melting metals for the
production of carts, rails, ploughs, etc... Furnace temperatures can reach
up to 1000°C  1500°C. We had no problems at all because the foundries were
far away from the city and had adequate measures for the collection and
transformation of the residues. As for the plastic, it was reduced to ashes.
The resulting smoke from incineration was undoubtedly hazardous. Although
Ido not know the composition of the smoke (sorry I am not a chemist), I
believe it should be held far away from food products.
I am sure in RCI you could find high-temperature foundries that do not deal
with food products, which will be willing to help you with the destruction
of this waste.
I trust Mr. Adama Sawadogo could advise you on this.
All the best and good campaign!
Pare Bibata,
Logistics Burkina Faso
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Dear All
Anthony and Bharat have pointed out real issues in large settings. I wish
to offer here some simple, practical, doable, cost effective but debatable
and tested practices at the point of use.
At the point of use, ie site where the immunization is being undertaken,
where the volume will be small.
Options :
1. Defang/ cut the needles with suitable device.
2. Store the metal needles in a container
3. These collected needles can be melted and reused after collecting them
from various sites
4. The plastic AD syringes could be stored and sent to a bigger place for
shredding them into pieces - recycling.
5. The AD syringes could be simply burnt - in a small tin box - I have
tried this in Andhra Pradesh in 2001. The syringes burnt without smoke and
no smell (BD soloshot), the ash content was very low, which was burried in
pit.
6. Even if the number is small, it burns fully ( I shall try to recover the
photos and share with Technet members).
7. Syringes could be burnt in the safety box itself without the addition of
any new burning material
8. But burning them in a tin box is better as it would eventually save
paper (boxes are made of paper) and thus the wood and ultimately trees. (I
had calculated some time back the trees to be cut for supplying 1 card
board box for 1 district in a year - I would share this info soon) as the
syringes burn fully in the tin box getting adequate air supply for
burning. (unless too many are stuffed leaving no air space).
By destroying the needles and syringes at the point of use adds to following :
1. Reduces the storage space of used needles, (space is precious).
2. Reduces the chances of needle injury and contamination to staff and workers.
3. No cost of transportation (unless shredding and recycling of plastic is
required - the economics need to be calculated as many times the cost of
transportation is going to be more than what is going to be achieved). In
health sector with limited resources this must be considered. (storing and
shredding is viable in large volume settings).
4. Precious wood and trees would be saved by not using the card board box
for burning.
5. Manpower time saved to concentrate on healh delivery.
6. The atmospheric pollution would be very minimal as the quantities are
small.
7. The infrastructure and cost is minimal ( 20 cents for tin box, 1 cent
for a match box,and 1/2 old newspaper).
8. Easy to implement.
9. Minimal training required and no skills needed
Regards,
Anil
Dr Anil Varshney
Healthcare Consultancy Services
New Delhi
India
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While I agree with Mr.Bharat K. Sharma that recycling is a the best option,
in a country like India, how to get the used AD syringes to the recyclers?
In fact, once I undertook a visit to one such plastics recycler in Dharavi
Area in Mumbai, India- I got an answer from this plastic scrap dealer cum
recycler that he is ready to pick up free of cost by truck from any where
in India, provided any agency is ready to give him "a couple of
truck-loads" of used AD syringes which are of high quality plastics!
The recycler even took me around his makeshift factory used for shredding
all types of plastics, which are given to manufactures of plastic buckets,
mugs, etc.
With simple logistics, how to get a sizable percentage of used syringes
form the 10 million syringes that are going to be used in a country like
India- Can anyone suggest ?
Thanks
Sridharan R
Program officer,
Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH)
New Delhi 110003. India
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