A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, School of Environment, Resources and Development

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1998

The environmental issues with regards to the hospital waste management system in Yangon City are manifold. The Yangon City Development Committee is responsible for solid waste management in the city. The hospital wastes are not separated and are disposed together with the other hazardous and domestic waste in Yangon City. Most of the wastewater generated by the hospitals is also discharged to the sewage systems without treatment, thereby affecting human health and the environment. The inadequacies in the current hospital waste management practices in Yangon are mainly defined in the aspects of ineffective segregation at source, inappropriate collection method and unsafe storage of waste. In addition, the inappropriate practices of disposing hospital waste together with general waste in municipal landfill sites are compounding the problem. The other issues that need considering, are lack of appropriate protective equipment and clothing for staff handling the infectious waste, lack of training and clear lines of responsibilities between the departments involved in hospital waste management. As a start off, an adhoc or temporary emergency management system could be used to eliminate the inadequacies in the present HWM system. This system is simple, easy and not costly to manage. The inadequacies in the present system are in the form of lack of specific policies, guidelines and standards with regards to hospital waste management. To fill these gaps recommendations are made to formulate a hospital waste management system delineating responsibilities for the various actors. It is prudent to formulate the policies and strategies based on the guidelines proposed by WHO for developing countries for an efficient hospital waste management system. To formulate national and local level policies on HWM, specific committees at different levels national, state and local, are recommended to facilitate policy formulation and implementation. In addition, an action plan was proposed to initiate the process till the recommendations and implementation mechanisms of the committees are adopted. An action plan detailing out the specific objectives, key indicators and responsible actors is formulated, which can serve as a model that can be adopted for other urban areas in the country. This can also constitute an important component of the policy on Hospital Waste Management for Myanmar.