Infectious and other hospital waste in Germany: review of available statistical data

Abstract

Healthcare waste has increased dramatically worldwide in recent years, burdening healthcare facilities and intensifying the resulting environmental effects. In Germany, around 425,400 Mg of healthcare waste is generated annually, with 2.4% categorized as infectious waste. This waste type poses substantial challenges for both hospitals and the waste management industry for occupational health and safety reasons. Thus, it is typically incinerated rather than recycled, like most healthcare waste. This review aims to support circular economy in the healthcare system by identifying the current status quo of statistical data on healthcare waste. The methodology includes analysing official statistics, a literature search and validating expert interviews. The results show inconsistencies between WHO and German waste definitions, which are based on the European Waste Catalogue (EWC), as well as data gaps in federal and federal state statistics. Consequently, this study proposes a waste category conversion logic of WHO and EWC. Moreover, selected field data from a southern German hospital group with five sites are presented that exhibit reasonably useful data for circular economy implementation purposes.