Research pick: The problem of hospital wastewater - "Analysis of wastewater from medical institutions in India"

Research published in the World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development looks at the wastewater from medical institutions in India, they highlight the presence of difficult-to-detect undegraded pharmaceuticals as well as more obvious contaminants such as vomit, faeces, metal particles, hydrogen sulfide, disinfectants, urea, various pathogens, and many other problematic substances.

In several parts of the world, including India and Ukraine, wastewater from hospitals is discharged to urban wastewater treatment plants at huge volumes. Pharmaceutical contaminants are bioactive and can have a detrimental effect on life that comes into contact with these substances, aquatic and human life. This represents a problem of serious concern as basic water treatment may not remove many of the contaminants that are present at higher concentrations than in wastewater from domestic sources. The research focuses on those pharmaceuticals and compounds of particular concern.

The study was carried out by Aastha Dhingra, Nadeem A. Khan, and Sirajuddin Ahmed of the Department of Civil Engineering at Jamia Millia Islamia, Siddhartha Gautam of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, in New Delhi, India, and Sergij Vambol of the Kharkiv Petro Vasylenko National Technical University of Agriculture in Kharkiv, Viola Vambol of the National Scientific and Research Institute of Industrial Safety and Occupational Safety and Health, Kiev, and Svitlana Kovalenko of the National University of Civil Defence of Ukraine, Ukraine.

Hospitals generate several hundred litres of wastewater per patient every day, this represents a huge amount of usage. It is a matter of urgency that hospitals install and deploy water-reduction systems such as rainwater harvesting systems, grey water systems, and adapted shower heads and irrigation equipment that are as effective but have a reduced water flow rate. Hospitals must also consider self-auditing their water usage so that they might identify where savings might be made. All of this could add up to a reduced burden on wastewater treatment.

Dhingra, A., Khan, N.A., Ahmed, S., Gautam, S., Vambol, S., Vambol, V. and Kovalenko, S. (2022) ‘Analysis of wastewater from medical institutions in India’, World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 18, Nos. 3/4, pp.436–444.