Environmental Impact Assessment of Medical Wastes Shredding Machine in Al-Hila Teaching Hospital-Babylon Province, IRAQ

This study was carried out to assess the environmental impact of medical wastes shredding machine in Al-Hila Teaching Hospital-babylon Province, IRAQ and samples of medical wastes received from various local health premises were identified and the percentage of each component in wet and dried forms were assessed. Several heavy metal ions were determined while air variables such as CO, NO₂ and SO₂ were measured in shredding machine location and surrounding environment. Regarding waste heavy metal content, current work has found that the highest mean concentration (1.473 ± 0.786 μg/kg) was recorded for cadmium ion which was within standard limit (1–3 μg/kg) while both copper and ferrous ions gave mean value of 0.0163 ± 0.005 μg/kg and 0.679 ± 0.431 μg/kg respectively. In case of air gases, it was found that there were no significant differences between all measured gases in all measured siteswithin shredding room and surrounding environment where NO₂ mean values were 0.0194 ± 0.006 ppm and 0.019 ± 0.002 ppm respectively while SO₂ gave mean values of 0.033 ± 0.002 ppm and 0.049 ± 0.003 ppm respectively and CO mean concentrations have been found to be 0.026 ± 0.023 ppm and 0.05 ± 0.007 ppm respectively.