Expected Benefits

As a result of this project, reductions in dioxin and mercury releases will have been achieved that would not otherwise have been possible.

If replicated nationally and sustained, best practices and techniques initiated locally during the project’s implementation are expected to reduce the release of an estimated 187 g TEQ (toxic equivalency) of dioxins and 2,910 kg of mercury to the environment each year from participating countries’ healthcare sectors. Additionally, appropriate and affordable healthcare waste treatment technologies will be available for use in sub-Saharan Africa and in other parts of the world that would not otherwise have been available.

The project’s alternative systems approach to healthcare waste management is fully integrating the project’s global environmental objectives into more immediate efforts to improve the performance of healthcare delivery systems, protect worker health and safety, and support the adoption of alternative technologies suitable for the treatment of healthcare waste that effectively decontaminate waste, but do so below temperatures at which combustion and dioxin formation take place.

On the national and local levels, as a result of this project, a more consistent and coherent approach to the implementation of best practices for healthcare waste management will be in place in seven countries. The project is creating models and experiences that can then be taken into account by healthcare institutions, governments, stakeholders and funding agencies in developing future projects and interventions.

Finally, in virtually each and every case, despite Stockholm Convention obligations and in the absence of this project, the baseline would be the generation of substantially larger quantities of healthcare waste by the facilities to be targeted, and as a result, a substantially higher level of combustion of those wastes by open burning, uncontrolled burners or inadequately controlled incinerators. This intervention is thus laying the basis for replication measures that serve to meet country obligations under the Convention and protect public health and the global environment from the impacts of dioxin and mercury releases.

In summary, the project reduces barriers to the implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, the International Waters Global Programme of Action, and the World Health Organization's policies on safe healthcare waste management and on mercury in healthcare. An ancillary benefit of this work is the improvement of health delivery systems through the fostering of good healthcare waste management practices, thereby supporting the prerequisites for achieving the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. The project’s ultimate benefit is the protection of the global environment and public health, as well as patients, healthcare workers, and communities, from the impacts of dioxin and mercury releases.

Learn more about the project's global goal and objectives, structure and partners, and methodology, or the project's work in Argentina, India, Latvia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania and Vietnam.