Life Cycle Assessment Of Conventional And Emergency Medical Waste Disposal Technologies During The COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 epidemic has led to a surge in medical waste(MW),and the generation amount of MW in severely affected areas far exceeds existing disposal capacity.Meanwhile,COVID-19 related MW is at greater infection risk than general MW,so the MW disposal is an urgent need for preventing the epidemic spread.Therefore,it is crucial to select more environmentally friendly and economical MW disposal technologies.This study firstly evaluated and compared five conventional MW disposal technologies from the energy,environmental and economic perspectives;secondly,the situation of MW generation and disposal in China before and after the epidemic were analyzed,and the characteristics and applicability of five emergency MW disposal technologies were compared;finally,the environmental impacts of five emergency disposal technologies were quantified and compared via life cycle assessment(LCA).The study details are as follows.Firstly,five conventional MW disposal technologies(i.e.rotary kiln incineration,pyrolysis incineration,plasma melting,“steam sterilization+landfill” and “microwave sterilization+landfill”)were evaluated and compared via energy recovery analysis(ERA),LCA,and life cycle costing(LCC)methods,and five technologies were further analyzed via scenario analysis.ERA results reveal that the energy recovery efficiencies of “steam and microwave sterilization+incineration” are the highest(≥83.4%),whilst that of the plasma melting is the lowest(19.2%).LCA results show that “microwave sterilization+landfill” outperforms others while the plasma melting exhibits the worst.Scenario analysis shows that the overall environmental impact of all technologies reduced by at least 45% after further heat utilization.LCC results demonstrate that pyrolysis incineration delivers the lowest economic cost,while plasma melting is the highest.Meanwhile,effective measures to reduce environmental and economic impacts were proposed.Secondly,this study analyzed the status of MW generation and disposal in China before and during the COVID-19 pandemic,and compared the characteristics and applicability of five emergency disposal technologies.Based on the environmental risk and technical adaptability,the five emergency MW disposal technologies were recommended to be prioritized as follows: movable microwave sterilization,movable steam sterilization,movable incineration,co-incineration with hazardous waste,coincineration with municipal solid waste(MSW).All stakeholders involved in the generation,transportation and disposal should strengthen the delicacy management of the whole life cycle stage of MW.Finally,the environmental impacts and key factors of three movable disposal technologies(i.e.incineration disposal vehicle,movable steam and microwave sterilization equipment)were quantified and identified via LCA method,and the environmental impacts of three movable disposal and two co-incineration technologies were further compared.The results show that co-incineration with MSW has the lowest environmental impacts due to environmental benefits produced by power generation,while co-incineration with hazardous waste is the highest due to the high energy consumption.Energy consumption(i.e.kerosene,electricity and diesel)are the key factors for three movable disposal technologies.For movable steam and microwave sterilization equipment followed by co-incineration with MSW,power generation from incinerating disinfected MW has significant environmental benefits.