The Current Status and Future of Medical Waste Disposal in China

The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
Email: mengxiang5025yu@gmail.com
Manuscript received January 7, 2025; accepted May 27, 2025; published July 21, 2025.

Abstract—Medical waste is a kind of hazardous waste with complicated components and particular damage, which easily contaminates the surrounding soil, atmosphere, underground water, and human health. Based on the analysis of the gap between the current situation and disposal demand of medical waste disposal, this study expounds on the problems of the centralized medical waste disposal system in each link, which can be roughly classified as lagging treatment capacity, lack of modern medical waste disposal process in rural and remote areas, and imperfect management system. At the same time, in response to the above problems, this paper proposed to add specific medical waste treatment guidance manuals to the system and clarify the standards and norms of each link. In rural areas, this paper suggested actively training medical staff and increasing modern medical waste disposal technology. In technology, this paper advises using more environmentally friendly disposal equipment and recycling uncontaminated high-value medical plastics to reduce the cost of medical institutions.

Keywords—COVID-19, medical waste, medical plastic

Cite: Xiangyu Meng, "The Current Status and Future of Medical Waste Disposal in China," International Journal of Sustainability in Energy and Environment, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 53-62, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited ( CC-BY-4.0).