Quantifying and qualifying hospital pharmaceutical waste: a case study in Tehran, Iran

Nowadays, hospital waste management is particularly important due to its potential pathogenicity and serious hazards and is considered as one of the most important environmental problems. One of the prominent actions in hospital waste management is quantitative studies and the collection of reliable and valid data to provide the best management solutions using the obtained information. Therefore, the present study was performed to reach this purpose. Measuring and quantifing of the hospital waste was performed using a daily list of the amount of medication used in the hospital. The weight of vial containers and the amount of residue and syringe, and serum wastes were also measured separately. Finally, the overall amount and per capita of waste production were determined. The results showed that pharmaceutical waste and drug residue in the hospital were 153.82 kg.d−1 and 45.87 kg.d−1, respectively. Per capita production of pharmaceutical waste per patient and hospital bed was estimated to be 181.81 g.p−1.d−1 and 264.7 g.b−1.d−1, and per capita production of drug residue per patient and hospital bed were 54.22 g.p−1.d−1 and 88.21 g.b−1.d−1, respectively. Among the types of pharmaceutical waste found in vials, the antibiotics had the highest weight percent. The emergency department and operating room played a major role in producing pharmaceutical waste among different hospital wards. This study showed that the pharmaceutical waste production in the considered hospital was relatively high, which can be attributed to several factors such as waste management, type of health care, type of hospital, ratio of patients under daily treatment, gender, and initial weight of containers.