The National "Epidemic Related" Medical Wastes Need To Be Standardized In Order To Realize The Daily Disposal Of Medical Wastes.

During the outbreak of new crown pneumonia, the number of medical waste increased as the number of patients admitted to the hospital increased.

On March 11th, at the press conference of the joint defense and joint control mechanism of the State Council, Zhao Qunying, director of the emergency department of the Ministry of ecology and environment, said that the national medical waste treatment capacity increased from 4902.8 tons / day before the epidemic to the current 6022 tons / day, an increase of 23%. At present, all the medical wastes involved in the epidemic are collected and transported on the same day and disposed of on the same day. Since January 20th, the country has handled 142 thousand tons of medical waste.

According to reports, before the outbreak, the amount of medical waste produced in Wuhan was more than 40 tons / day. With the gradual increase of cases, the generation of medical waste reaches more than 240 tons / day at the peak. During this period, the most important thing is to rapidly upgrade the disposal capacity of medical waste in Wuhan.

In the face of the surge of medical waste, according to the unified control of epidemic prevention command headquarters, the environmental sanitation department, which originally only undertaken garbage collection and handling tasks in Wuhan, broke the industry boundary, arranged special cars and designated special municipal solid waste incineration plants to undertake some emergency disposal tasks for medical waste.

Zhao Qunying also said that the epidemic exposed Hubei Wuhan medical waste disposal capacity short board, in fact, there are 22 cities nationwide medical waste treatment overloaded operation, and 28 full load operation or close to full load.

Relieve the pressure of medical waste disposal

How to deal with the "number one hazardous waste" of medical waste after the battle is also a key link to fight the epidemic.

Prior to that, the Wuhan Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau announced "Wuhan solid waste pollution prevention and control information bulletin" in 2018 showed that in 2018, the volume of medical waste generated in Wuhan was 17 thousand and 300 tons, which was processed by Han's environmental protection company, the only enterprise in Wuhan, which had the qualification to deal with medical waste. Its scale was 18 thousand tons / year, equivalent to about 49 tons per day. Obviously, the original capacity of medical waste treatment in Wuhan is not enough to cope with the huge amount of medical waste produced under the epidemic.

In March 10th, the Ministry of ecology and environment held a press conference that Wuhan had once seen the phenomenon of medical waste accumulation. At most, about 190 tons were left in the temporary repository.

Since the end of January 2020, the Ministry of ecology and environment has issued more than one circular to carry out the work plan for the treatment of outbreaks of medical wastes. Among them, the management and technical guidelines for emergency management of medical waste in new coronavirus infection regulations (Trial Implementation) stipulates that emergency disposal plans should be launched immediately when the existing disposal capacity of the area can not meet the needs of emergency disposal of medical waste in the epidemic situation, and mobile medical waste disposal facilities, hazardous waste incineration facilities, domestic waste incineration facilities and industries can be selected. Facilities such as furnaces and furnaces are urgently needed to deal with the outbreaks of pneumonia and medical wastes.

Outside Wuhan, at the beginning of February, all the "reserve forces" were added to participate in the disposal of medical waste. Shanghai, Shanwei, Zhuhai, Dongying, Putian, Xiantao and other places have made use of municipal solid waste incineration facilities to carry out emergency disposal of medical wastes. It is understood that the waste incineration plant in conjunction with the disposal of medical waste as an example, medical waste disposal charges by weight, all provinces and cities nationwide charges, about 2000 yuan -3000 yuan / ton. The MSW incineration price is generally around 100 yuan / ton, or even lower, so refuse incineration enterprises are also willing to accept medical waste.

At the news conference in March 10th, the Ministry of ecology and environment pointed out that at present, the capacity of medical waste disposal in China has increased by more than 1100 tons compared with the initial stage of the epidemic. The increase is mainly due to the increased coordination of disposal of mobile equipment and hazardous waste incineration facilities, and the garbage incineration facilities can also coordinate disposal of medical wastes.

Market expansion of medical waste treatment

"In the long run, the prospect of medical waste classification industry is broad, but there are many problems that can not be ignored." An industry related person in Southern China told reporters on twenty-first Century economic report.

In fact, during the SARS period in 2003, many cities had already "suffered losses" in the treatment of medical waste. At that time, there were more than 500 hospitals and more than 7000 health care institutions in Beijing. During the period of SARS, medical waste increased to 120 tons / day, and only 4 of Beijing's simple incineration facilities were completely "unable to eat".

After SARS, domestic efforts to deal with medical waste have been increasing. Especially in 2014, the national plan for the construction of hazardous waste and medical waste disposal facilities, with a total investment of 14 billion 920 million yuan, has invested 300 medical waste disposal facilities in the whole country.

Policy support over the years has also pushed the market for medical waste to a certain extent. The forecasted Industrial Research Institute forecasted the scale of China's medical treatment and hazardous waste treatment in 2018 -2023, indicating that the scale of medical waste treatment market will reach 10 billion 737 million yuan in 2023, and the output of medical waste will reach 2 million 495 thousand and 600 tons.

However, as the scale of medical waste treatment market is expanding, the chaos of medical waste disposal still exists.

The report of the Huaxia happy Industry Research Institute estimated that the amount of medical waste produced in 2018 was about 2 million 302 thousand tons, while the actual disposal volume of medical waste in 200 large and medium-sized cities was 816 thousand tons, accounting for only 35% of the former, and a large number of medical wastes had not been standardized.

At present, the fees and charges of medical waste disposal in different parts of China are not uniform. The cost of treatment has not been formally incorporated into the medical cost. Some factors, such as the confusion of medical waste management, the classified collection system of medical waste and the imperfect laws and regulations, also restrict the development of medical waste treatment market to a certain extent.

The epidemic is a direct exposure of the unbalanced distribution of medical waste disposal capacity. Some places are running at full load or even over load. Some cities do not have medical waste disposal facilities, and are disposed of by the surrounding cities.

Obviously, the expanding market of medical waste treatment needs further standardization. Previously, Cui Yan, Deputy Secretary General of the China Materials Recycling Association, once said that pollution control, clean production and disease prevention and control will become the main theme of the healthy development of the medical industry in the future.

Zhao Qunying, director of the emergency department of the Ministry of ecology and environment, also said at a regular news conference in March 11th that by the end of this year, every prefecture level city had to build a standardized medical waste treatment plant. By June 2022, there would be a scientific system for collecting, transferring and disposing medical wastes from all districts and counties in the country, so that all medical wastes could be collected effectively and safely. Place.

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