The CP/RAC organized a training on medical waste management in Albania

On 7th November 2011 began a 10-days training on medical waste management hosted in Durres International Hospital (Albania). The training was organized by the UNEP / MAP Regional Activity Center for Cleaner Production (CP/RAC) in collaboration with an undergoing WHO (World Health Organization) project, the trainers Trust Waste Management Limited and the Albanian Ministry of Health.

The aim of the training was to increase the knowledge and awareness of the hospital staff about the consequences of the medical waste mismanagement and to train them to manage this waste in a proper way. The participants of the different training sessions were health staff (doctors, nurses, etc.) and waste managers.

The second day Virginia Vidal, project manager of the CP/RAC, was one of the trainers of the session where she explained the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and the role of the Regional Activity Centers as the CP/RAC, which are the unintentional POPs and how they appear, the promotion of Best Available Techniques (BAT) and Best Environmental Practices (BEP) to tackle this situation and a case study focused on how the medical waste are managed in Catalonia (Spain).

The mismanagement of medical waste is one of the potential sources of dioxins and furans classified in Annex C part II of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. On the other hand, during the revision of the Albanian National Implementation Plan (NIP) the medical waste management was detected as one of the top priorities. The training of the hospital staff on sound waste management was set among different objectives in the Albanian NIP to improve the situation and reduce emissions of unintentional POPs.

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