February 2021
Medical waste disposal industry in China started in the 1980s.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, authorities including the National Health Commission issued the Work Plan for Comprehensive Treatment of Waste from Medical institutions. The work plan requires each prefecture-level city (293 prefecture-level cities) to build at least one standardized medical waste disposal facility by the end of 2020, and each county (about 2,846 county-level administrative divisions) to build a medical waste collection, transfer and disposal system by the end of June 2022.
The National Hazardous Waste List issued by the China Ministry of Environmental Protection divides medical waste into five categories, including: 1) Infectious waste, which refers to medical waste that carries pathogenic microorganisms and causes the risk of spreading infectious diseases; 2) Pathologic waste refers to wastes such as human wastes or medical laboratory animal carcasses generated during diagnosis and treatment; 3) Damaging waste refers to discarded medical sharps that can stab or cut the human body; 4) Drug waste refers to expired, abandoned drugs that are eliminated, deteriorated or contaminated; 5) Chemical waste refers to discarded chemicals that are toxic, corrosive, flammable, and explosive. Among them, infectious waste including items contaminated by patients’ blood, body fluids, and excreta, accounts for the largest proportion, about 85%.
At present, medical waste disposal enterprises mainly deal with infectious and damaging medical waste. Most drug and chemical medical waste are transferred to hazardous waste disposal enterprises. Pathologic medical waste is not disposed by medical waste disposal enterprises.
For more information about current China’s medical waste disposal approaches, business model, market situation and size, and opportunities, please download the full report here.
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