REDEFINING RECYCLING TOWARDS CIRCULAR MODELS

Healthcare waste management (HCW) represent one of the major day-to-day challenges for healthcare structures due to high costs, environmental impact, and associated risks. To date, the methods used for the HCW disposal can cause several environmental side effects and they generally do not envisage to "loop" HCW back in the system to be reused. 

In this regard, frictional heat treatment represents a valid alternative technology to traditional incinerator disposal methods for processing infectious waste, whose residuals can be possibly used to create new products. For instance, healthcare facilities use a large amount of disposal diapers, especially in retirement facilities, where they represent about 40% of all waste material. Since they are not reused, diapers are considered municipal solid waste, representing a significant fraction of landfill/disposal costs and, due to their inherent composition, diapers can release many armful chemicals in the environment. Those important facts warrant an investigation into effective resource recovery and recycling, as the constituent components of said waste retain valuable characteristics.