Microplastics and heavy metals emissions from healthcare waste management: A comparative life cycle assessment

Abstract

Healthcare Waste Management (HCWM) contributes to environmental pollution and health hazards. There are several established approaches to measure environmental and health impacts from HCWM. Amidst, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the most popular tools to evaluate such impacts. This research was conducted to compare environmental impacts, and Microplastics (MPs) and Heavy Metals (HMs) emissions through LCA from HCWM between public and private Healthcare Facilities (HCFs) in Chattogram, Bangladesh. Five case studies were conducted based on the size of HCFs including one ideal scenario (developed with minimum impacts). The LCA was evaluated by SimaPro version 9.5.0.0 software and the ReCiPe 2016 method. Results revealed that private HCFs highly contributed to the eighteen studied impact categories. The main impact categories were human toxicity, global warming, ecotoxicity, eutrophication, acidification and resource scarcity. The existing common Healthcare Waste (HCW) disposal options were waste transport, open burning, recycling and dumping. The ranges of major impacts from HCWM were global warming (0.588–1.122 kg CO₂ eq), followed by human non-carcinogenic toxicity (0.002–0.003 kg CO₂ eq.) and ecotoxicity (0.000–0.001 kg CO₂ eq.). It demonstrated that dumping of HCW, landfill leachate, open burning/ incineration ash and recycling processes along with wastewater of recycling plants are the potential sources of HMs (up to 14480 mg/kg waste) and MPs (1906–7223 items/kg waste) pollution. This study demonstrates the potential levels of environmental impacts along with HMs and MPs emissions from the HCWM system, which will facilitate the relevant authorities and policy makers to adopt the required strategies.