Greening Health Care Waste Management: Policies and Good Practices

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The provision of sustainable health care waste management (HCWM) has been receiving increasing global attention. Due to the risk of COVID-19 transmission, there has been a growing need for proper medical waste management worldwide, particularly in developing countries where proper HCWM is not in place. Recent studies also show that the health care sector’s climate footprint is equivalent to 4.4% of global net emissions (Health Care Without Harm and ARUP, 2019). To date, a lack of infrastructure, inadequate budgets, absence of supportive policy and regulation, and capacity gaps make it difficult to achieve environmentally sound HCWM, underscoring the urgency of realizing sustainable and inclusive HCWM systems and green infrastructure (UNEP and IGES, 2020 and 2022). Therefore, safe and sustainable (especially from climate perspective) medical waste management should be implemented urgently. Recently, a group of 50 countries at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow made a new commitment to take concrete steps towards creating green, climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems in response to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. 

This special session invited several researchers, practitioners and business entrepreneurs in the field of HCWM to present and discuss policies and good practices for greening health infrastructure, based on their recent research and work. This was followed by an engaging and constructive discussion between the panelists and participants.