Demonstrating and Promoting Best Techniques and Practices for Reducing Health-care Waste to Avoid Environmental Releases of Dioxins and Mercury Executed by Participating Countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America
Time：2006-12-29 16:59
Demonstrating and Promoting Best Techniques and Practices for Reducing Health-care Waste to Avoid Environmental Releases of Dioxins and Mercury Executed by Participating Countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America
Year: 2006
The project was funded by GEF Trust Fund, and executed by Health or Environment Ministry in each participating country in cooperation with HCWH and WHO. Participate countries included Argentina, India, Latvia, Lebanon, Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, and Vietnam.
The health sector is a major source of dioxins and mercury in the global environment primarily as a result of medical waste incineration and the breakage and improper disposal of mercury-containing devices such as thermometers and sphygmomanometers. This Project is designed to assist the participating countries in developing and sustaining best practices in a way that is both locally appropriate and globally replicable. An additional component in Tanzania will develop, test and disseminate affordable and effective alternative health-care waste treatment technologies appropriate to conditions in much of sub-Saharan Africa. The Project aims to demonstrate and promote replication of best environmental practices and techniques for health-care waste management through model facilities and programs, and to reduce barriers to national implementation of these strategies. The main Project activities will include: - Establishment of model facilities and programs exemplifying health-care waste management best practices, and development of replication materials; - Deployment and evaluation of appropriate commercially-available, non-incineration health-care waste treatment technologies; - Development, testing, manufacture and deployment of appropriate and affordable, small-scale non-incineration technologies for sub-Saharan African facilities, and preparation and dissemination of manuals; - Introduction of mercury-free devices in model facilities, evaluation of their acceptability and efficacy, and development and dissemination of awareness-raising and educational materials; - Establishment/enhancement of capacity-building training programs for best practices and appropriate technologies implementation beyond the model facilities and programs; - Review of relevant policies, seeking of agreement by relevant authorities on recommended updates or reformulations, seeking of implementation plan agreement, and assistance in any policy review conference; - Distribution of best techniques and practices results to relevant stakeholders; and - Dissemination of results on demonstrated best techniques and practices for scaling up regionally and globally.