Environmental Risks Study of Toxic Metals Contamination for Medical Wastes

Abstract

Three Hospitals in Iraq were selected as the subject of this study. The study included studying the environmental risks resulting from the process of treating hospital waste by random burning by taking ash samples from the burned waste of the studied hospitals, determining the concentrations of toxic metals present in them, comparing this with the internationally defined levels, and indicating the extent of environmental hazard. The results of the laboratory analysis of fifteen samples of ash from the studied hospitals showed that in all these hospitals the ash contains toxic heavy metals, including lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), and chromium (Cr). It was found that the concentrations of the elements in these toxic metals all exceed the limits permitted by the World Health Organization (WHO) (5, 1, and 5) mg/lliter, as the highest concentration of the lead metal, Pb, was (78.11) mg/lliter in the The third hospital. The highest concentration of cadmium (Cd) is 9.13 mg/lliter in the second Hospital, and the highest concentration of chromium (Cr) is 51.73 mg/lliter in the third Hospital, and it was found that there is no mechanism for disposal of this ash, which makes it a real threat to pollution of ground water and threatens human and animal life if contacted or inhaled.