POST 00831E : COST OF SHARPS WASTE MANAGEMENT
5 September 2005
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Bob Chen (mailto:
[email protected]) from the United States request information
about the actual costs of sharps waste management.
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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)
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