Ecobreves – PERU:: Regulating Hospital Waste Management

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

LIMA, Jul 5 2004 (IPS) - Peru will begin special processing of dangerous waste coming from hospitals, the treatment of which had not been included in the national Solid Waste Act of 2000. According to a report from the environmental health office, DIGESA, of the Health Ministry, Lima produces some 30 tons of hospital waste each day, and 75 percent is paper and food waste that can be treated as common domestic garbage.

But the dangerous portion is made up of organic pathological material, chemical or pharmaceutical residues, sharp or puncturing objects and radioactive material.

Lima's hospitals have incinerators, but because of technological deficiencies, along with those ashes there are three tons of hospital waste arriving at the landfills each day, posing serious threats to the environment and human health, said DIGESA biologist Elmer Quichiz.

The regulations for the waste management act were approved by parliament on Jun. 19.