HOSPITAL WASTES CAUSES AIR POLLUTION, CASE STUDY OF HOSPITAL WASTES DISPOSING PROCESS IN PESHAWAR CITY

Abstract

Air pollution is one of the challenging issues for the progressing world in recent decades. In revolution of development all countries are in the race of achieving economic growth without considering the environmental threats as major issues. Sustainable development Goal 3, Good health and well-being is strongly correlated with goal 15, Life on land. Sustainable life on this planet can be achieved by utilizing all natural resources in a way such that it cannot disturb the environment for future generation. Clean and fresh air is a natural gift, but it has been observed from the past few decades that the quality of fresh air is worsen off due to many factors like carbon emission from industrial sector, Transportation, open burning of waste, etc. Pakistan has been ranked in the top countries that are vulnerable to climate risk and cities with high air quality index. Each year almost 128,000 people in Pakistan died due to air pollution. This study evaluates the disposing process of different hospitals waste in Peshawar city. 10 tertiary level hospitals and 6 laboratories were taken in sample size based on simple random sampling. The focal person of waste management system in each hospital was interviewed regarding the processes of handling hospital wastes. Results show that 62 percent of the hospitals were not following the general SOP’s of health department and rules of Environmental protection agency. 38 percent of the hospital waste management (HWM) team was not aware from the negative impact of sharp waste and 62 percent were not considering hospital waste as a serious issue. Study concludes that there is a need of proper mechanism for the treatment of the hospital sharp waste. The waste disposal plant with high potential incinerators are much costly, to divide the cost burden all the private hospitals should collectively establish waste disposal plant outside the city monitored by KP environmental protection agency to regulated the standard operating procedures (SOP’s).