Management, removal, and elimination of biologic, infectious, pathologic, and dental waste. The concept includes blood, mucus, tissue removed at surgery or autopsy, soiled surgical dressings, and other materials requiring special control and handling. Disposal may take place where the waste is generated or elsewhere.

Blood, mucus, tissue removed at surgery or autopsy, soiled surgical dressings, and other materials requiring special disposal procedures.

The discarding or destroying of garbage, sewage, or other waste matter or its transformation into something useful or innocuous.

Waste products which threaten life, health, or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, disposed of, or otherwise managed.

Liquid, solid, or gaseous waste resulting from mining of radioactive ore, production of reactor fuel materials, reactor operation, processing of irradiated reactor fuels, and related operations, and from use of radioactive materials in research, industry, and medicine. (McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 4th ed)

Hospital department whose primary function is the upkeep and supervision of the buildings and grounds and the maintenance of hospital physical plant and equipment which requires engineering expertise.

High temperature destruction of waste by burning with subsequent reduction to ashes or conversion to an inert mass.

Management of the organization of HEALTH FACILITIES.

Worthless, damaged, defective, superfluous or effluent material from industrial operations.

Sites that receive and store WASTE PRODUCTS. Some facilities also sort, process, and recycle specific waste products.

Disposal, processing, controlling, recycling, and reusing the solid, liquid, and gaseous wastes of plants, animals, humans, and other organisms. It includes control within a closed ecological system to maintain a habitable environment.

Debris resulting from a process that is of no further use to the system producing it. The concept includes materials discharged from or stored in a system in inert form as a by-product of vital activities. (From Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1981)

Contamination of the air, bodies of water, or land with substances that are harmful to human health and the environment.

Penetrating stab wounds caused by needles. They are of special concern to health care workers since such injuries put them at risk for developing infectious disease.

Thorium. A radioactive element of the actinide series of metals. It has an atomic symbol Th, atomic number 90, and atomic weight 232.04. It is used as fuel in nuclear reactors to produce fissionable uranium isotopes. Because of its radioopacity, various thorium compounds are used to facilitate visualization in roentgenography.

Garbage, refuse, or sludge, or other discarded materials from a wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, and air pollution control facility that include solid, semi-solid, or contained material. It does not include materials dissolved in domestic sewage, irrigation return flows, or industrial discharges.

Chemical compounds which pollute the water of rivers, streams, lakes, the sea, reservoirs, or other bodies of water.

The discarding or destroying of liquid waste products or their transformation into something useful or innocuous.