QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF SOLID WASTES IN THE HOSPITALS OF BABOL UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, NORTH OF IRAN

Hospital solid wastes contain a significant percent of municipal solid wastes of any society. These kinds of wastes have pathogenic agents and hazardous materials which endanger the health of patients, staff and other costomers of hospitals. This investigation was performed to determine the quantity and quality of all types of produced wastes in hospitals of Babol university of medical sciences. This survey is a Cross- Sectional and descriptive study which is done in four hospitals. The daily mean of total produced wastes in these hospitals was 2373.5kg and its per capita was 2.99 kg /bed-day, and mean infectious wastes was estimated per capita was 0.89 kg/bed. The mean weight percentage of waste components include food wastes, plastic, paper, textiles, glass, metal, and others was evaluated as 22.9%, 25.6%, 16.4%, 15.7%, 2.8%, 1.4%, and 15.2% respectively. According to the quality and quantity of hospital wastes especially infectious wastes produced in studied hospitals and also considering the hazards of these solid wastes, proper management in stages of generation, collection, storage, transportation and disposal of these hazardous materials will be necessary for providing, safeguarding and promotion of the health level of patients, staff and other people of the society.