Planning for disposal of COVID-19 pandemic wastes in developing countries: a review of current challenges

Abstract

The health sector is critical to the well-being of any country, but developing countries have several obstacles that prevent them from providing adequate health care. This became an even larger concern after the COVID-19 outbreak left millions of people dead worldwide and generated huge amounts of infected or potentially infected wastes. The management and disposal of medical wastes during and post-COVID-19 represent a major challenge in all countries, but this challenge is particularly great for developing countries that do not have robust waste disposal infrastructure. The main problems in developing countries include inefficient treatment procedures, limited capacity of healthcare facilities, and improper waste disposal procedures. The management of medical wastes in most developing countries was primitive prior to the pandemic. The improper treatment and disposal of these wastes in our current situation may further speed COVID-19 spread, creating a serious risk for workers in the medical and sanitation fields, patients, and all of society. Therefore, there is a critical need to discuss emerging challenges in handling, treating, and disposing of medical wastes in developing countries during and after the COVID-19 outbreak. There is a need to determine best disposal techniques given the conditions and limitations under which developing countries operate. Several open questions need to be investigated concerning this global issue, such as to what extent developing countries can control the expected environmental impacts of COVID-19, particularly those related to medical wastes? What are the projected management scenarios for medical wastes under the COVID-19 outbreak? And what are the major environmental risks posed by contaminated wastes related to COVID-19 treatment? Studies directed at the questions above, careful planning, the use of large capacity mobile recycling facilities, and following established guidelines for disposal of medical wastes should reduce risk of COVID-19 spread in developing countries.

Keywords: Corona virus; Medical wastes; SARS-CoV-2; Waste disposal.

Fig. 1

The environmental impacts of COVID-19 are an important global issue, particularly after the second wave. There are multiple problems caused by COVID-19, which includes disposal of several medical and healthcare wastes (mainly face masks and gloves) and direct or indirect links between wastes and the risks of COVID-19 transmission in different environments including soil and water

Fig. 2

Various containers used by medical institutions for the disposal of hazardous healthcare wastes in Egypt (photos no. 1, 2, 3, and 4). Hazardous healthcare wastes that were disposed of without appropriate safety measures in piles of household garbage in Egypt (photos no. 5, 6, and 7)

Fig. 3

COVID-19 impacts on waste management ( Source: Fan et al., 2021)