Design of an incinerator to treat combined biomedical wastes generated from four major hospitals in Chandigarh and Shimla City, India.

Abstract

It is of prime importance to provide adequate healthcare facilities for a developing country. In this context, the India Government has been successful in implementing these objectives. However, with the increase in healthcare provisions has also lead to massive increase in generation of biomedical wastes. Inefficient handling of Health Care Wastes (HCW) in a hospital environment poses a severe threat to workers, patients, waste handlers and the general human community due to possibility of transmission of pathogens. Hence, a sound biomedical waste management practice is needed to avoid any potential issues. In general, a sound waste management technique involves appropriate planning including collection, segregation, storage, treatment and disposal procedures and adequate training of the workers involved in the process. In general, incineration is one of the most widely used techniques for disposal of biomedical wastes. The process involves burning of the waste at very high elevated temperatures (15000C) under controlled operating conditions in a chamber known as incinerator. The end products generated are carbon dioxide and water with ash as residual material. The paper presents in an in-depth analysis of design aspects of the incineration chamber.