Author(s)

Edouard Niyongabo¹, Rénovat Nkunzimana², Aloys Ndiziye³

¹Department of Public Health Sciences, East Africa Health Center, National Institute of Public Health (INSP), Bujumbura, Burundi.
²Department of Mathematics, University of Burundi, Bujumbura, Burundi.
³OXFAM Novib in Burundi, Bujumbura, Burundi.

Introduction: Treatment of solid medical waste (SMW) is a complex task requiring the proper practices with specific treatment methods corresponding to each type of SMW during pretreatment and final treatment. This study targeted three treatment methods identified as the main used by the majority of health care facilities (HCFs) and treating a large amount of SMW. It aimed: 1) to evaluate the current practices by calculating the emergy investment and emergy costs that are required to treat one ton of SMW through the three treatment methods and 2) to evaluate and compare better technologies and provide policy suggestions for the final treatment of SMW in Burundi. Materials and Methods: This study used the emergy methodology to evaluate the relative efficiencies of three treatment methods used for to treat SMW in twelve HCFs in Bujumbura. Results and Conclusion: The total emergy input was 1.36E+20 seJ/yr, 3.54E+17 seJ/yr, and 1.681E+18 seJ/yr for low temperature incinerator, landfill and organic pit, respectively. Conclusion: Rapid improvement of organic pit by ensuring its maintenance, the gradual replacement of low temperature incinerator by high temperature incinerator with air control pollution and landfill by sanitary landfill are highly recommended by respecting its maintenance (fence, roof and monitoring evaluation) for reducing the risk.

Emergy Evaluation, Treatment Methods, Solid Medical Waste

Niyongabo, E. , Nkunzimana, R. and Ndiziye, A. (2022) Emergy Evaluation of Treatment Methods for Solid Medical Waste in Bujumbura-Burundi. Open Journal of Nursing, 12, 125-154. doi: 10.4236/ojn.2022.122009.