IIT Bombay study highlights sustainable waste disposal in the Healthcare sector

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, led by Professor Pankaj Dutta and Dr. Anuj Dixit, conducted a study to determine the critical elements of a successful circular economy model implementation that enables the sustainable management of healthcare waste. The journal Smooth Technologies as well as Environmental recently published their research.

Medical waste generation in the nation is a critical concern that is brought to light by the research, which was performed between January and August of 2023. India generated 774 tons of biomedical waste per day in 2020. Furthermore, Mr. Dutta added, a lot of used, unused, as well as polluted drugs, equipment, protective gear, packing material are disposed of by people medical facilities.

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Policymakers may focus their initial efforts on crucial Critical Success Factors (CSFs) like "product design," "technology involvement," "segregation/collection," and "monitoring & regulation." The least significant CSFs, such as "Tax Incentives," "Affixing the Responsibilities of Govt Provider/Consumer," "Information Visibility," and "Training," will then be taken into account through a continuous improvement process, taking into account their relative importance and the degree of CE adoption. Dr. Dixit clarified that the CSFs will be reevaluated once the adoption level of CE guarantees that up to the satisfactory level.

Elements like "government's responsibility" and "stakeholder participation" were found to have the greatest potential as drivers, while elements like "segregation and collection," while important, were found to rely on other causal CSFs. The elements were "budget allocation," "manufacturer/corporate responsibility," "information visibility and transparency," and "training and empowerment."

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