Onet Spain Teams in Place to Assure Management of Potentially Hazardous Waste from Healthcare Facilities
Since the start of the healthcare crisis, the Ciudades Division of Onet Spain has been redoubling its efforts to do well its job of cleaning the region’s 24 hospitals and 250 medical facilities. It performs the task of managing the biohazardous waste from healthcare activities from many of these in the Castile and León Region.
- Wednesday 13 May 2020
- - Onet Espagne
Mobilized Teams Expert at Handling Biohazardous Infectious Waste
The service of collecting and managing infectious waste is subject to very strict government protocols, such as the requirement to minimize direct contact with the waste. To this end, Onet provided the hospitals with large-capacity city containers (800 liters) which are used to transport and unload bags without ever touching them.
All the operators, trained as they are in professional skills, are provided with suitable equipment, such as visors, giving them better mobility to perform their jobs while strictly following protocol.
Adapting and Reacting to Cope with Increasing Amounts of Biohazardous Healthcare Waste
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the teams handled an average of 3.2 tons of biohazardous healthcare waste. Since the start of the healthcare crisis, 12 tons of waste are processed daily with peaks of up to 14 tons.
“In the region’s 10 largest hospitals, we collect them every day. In the others, every other day,” specifies Ciudades Division Manager Carlos Martínez Téllez.
This significant increase in activity made the teams adapt in following special protocols to manage infectious waste. Consequently, the branch office augmented its workforce by hiring 14 new drivers and by renting additional trucks.
Safely Transporting and Disposing of Contaminated Waste
Thus, in “less than 24 hours” 25 Onet Ciudades operators pick up containers and replace them with other disinfected and empty ones making sure that containers are delivered to the processing sites in Medina del Campo and Hibisca where they are sterilized, shredded, and moved to an authorized landfill. This way, they are buried without any risk of contamination.
#THANKS EVERYONE
“First of all, I would like to thank all our operators for their engagement and mobilization. The protocol enables them to work under the best safety conditions. We are the final link in the chain of the fight against COVID-19 transporting the waste to the landfill where it is disposed of.”