An assessment tool for healthcare waste management in Brazilian municipalities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put healthcare waste management (HCWM) systems under pressure worldwide. In Brazil, where municipalities routinely experience challenges in ensuring suitable disposal of healthcare waste (HCW), the pandemic has made this even more challenging. Therefore, the creation of tools and methods to help in municipal HCWM during the COVID-19 pandemic is of utmost importance. This article presents the development of a tool to evaluate HCWM in Brazilian municipalities during the pandemic. Following guidelines of health agencies, 56 indicators and 18 criteria were selected to create a tool called the municipal healthcare waste management assessment index (iMHWaste). These indicators and criteria were divided into operational, environmental, political-economic, educational and social groups. Each group considers essential aspects for sustainable management, safety and reduced spread of coronavirus. The analytic hierarchy process was used to assign the weights attributed to the groups and criteria. The indicators can be measured according to a standardized rating scale proposed for each one. These elements were aggregated with a weighted linear combination, into an equation that allows the calculation of the iMHWaste. The index is rated on a scale of 0-1. The index was applied in a Brazilian municipality considering a pre-pandemic HCWM. With the identification of the municipality's management weaknesses, it was possible to identify the main actions that should be prioritized in the transition from traditional HCWM during the pandemic.

Healthcare waste management assessment: Challenges for hospitals in COVID-19 pandemic times.

With the spread of the new Coronavirus, there was an increase in the generation of contaminated waste. Thus, healthcare waste management (HCWM) became even a greater challenge in hospitals due to Coronavirus easily spread. In this context, it was necessary to create tools that could aid healthcare facilities in evaluating their HCWM. Therefore, the objective of this article was to elaborate a support tool that helps in identifying the shortcomings of hospitals' HCWM. For this purpose, the Health Service Waste Management Index was developed based on the selection of indicators in the area. The index was applied to six hospitals in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Its application meet the purpose of this research, since the results in the form of an index objectively summarize the reality of the HCWM in healthcare facilities. From the six hospitals investigated, four were classified as highly efficient. However, even though most of them were well evaluated, they still have difficulties with properly training their employees, which can be even a worse problem during a pandemic, when every precaution is extremely important to reduce the spread of the disease. Therefore, beyond this article contribution related to sustainability by demanding the hospitals to check which points of HCWM should be improved, it also adds academically by developing a tool with indicators that evaluate operational, human, economic and environmental factors in an innovative way.

An assessment tool for municipal construction waste management in Brazilian municipalities.

Construction waste is generated during construction and remodelling undertakings. Construction waste management (CWM) is a challenge in developing countries such as Brazil. Thus, it is necessary to create tools by which CWM may be evaluated. This article presents the elaboration of a tool to assess CWM in Brazilian cities; moreover, this method facilitates such analyses in regions which lack substantial quantitative data. In doing so, the tool, known as the Assessment Index for Construction Waste Management (ICWM), combines quantitative and qualitative information and is composed of 49 indicators and 19 criteria divided into the following groups: operational; environmental; politico-economic, educational; and social. The analytic hierarchy process was used to assign the weights attributed to the groups and criteria to build the index. The indicators were measured according to a standardized rating scale proposed for each one. These elements were aggregated in a mathematical formula that enables the calculation of the ICWM. The aggregation method used was a weighted linear combination, and the index is rated on a 0 to 1 scale. The ICWM was tested in four municipalities. In all cases, the management was considered inefficient. The proposed tool proved to be effective in evaluating the CWM. In cities where the ICWM was tested, it was possible to identify the significant deficiencies of the CWM and recommend improvement actions to develop more efficient and sustainable management.

Discrete event simulation as a decision-making tool for end-of-life tire reverse logistics in a Brazilian city consortium.

Tires require adequate disposal at the end of their useful life due to the environmental damage that improper disposal can cause. Since the 1990s, Brazilian legislation has laid out specific rules for tire disposal. This brought about results in 2017, when 93% of the target was met for environmentally correct tire disposal, according to the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources. To reach this index, consumers, business people, city halls, and manufacturers had to work together. However, cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants continued to encounter difficulties to carry out the process efficiently. Thus, the objective of this study is to propose new alternatives so that small cities can plan and implement reverse logistics management for unusable tires. The tool used to verify improvement was discrete event simulation, which allowed for the creation of scenarios, experimenting with changes to the consortium's operation. The analysis confirms that the consortium of cities can have a more efficient process in the destination of tires, with the possibility of reducing costs by 15%, emission of pollutant gases by 71%, and CO2 by 57%.