Abstract
A study was conducted to evaluate a gas-fired incinerator system for the eradication
of infectious waste compared with a fuel-fired one, with regard to their efficiency in
destroying such materials, their cost of operation, and the satisfaction of the 127 hospital
staff who have to work with them. The materials employed in the study comprised the reports on hospital infectious
waste incineration, the Yala City Municipality Rule 2007 dealing with such services, the
collection and eradication of infectious waste, and the statements of hospital staff as contained
in questionnaires which had been approved in substance and for accuracy, with a
confidential value of 0.83; they were tested using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The data
were analyzed by using percentage statistics and average.
Findings :
1. As regard the effective budget for destroying infectious waste, comparing a gasfired
incinerator with a fuel-fired system at the Yala Municipal waste treatment plant, it
appeared that:
- The average cost for eradicating infectious waste, using the gas-fired incinerator
system, is 3.34 baht perkilogram, while that for the fuel-fired system is 23.42 baht
per kilogram; the average cost of eradicating infectious waste transported to the Yala
Municipal waste treatment plant is 81.56 per kilogram.
2. The comparison between the gas-fired incinerator and the fuel-fired one showed
that the gas-fired system had greater efficiency than the fuel-fired system, with regard to
combustion rate, quantity of ash produced, residues following combustion and number
of staff need to operate the system.
3. As for the satisfaction of the 127 hospital staff concerned, it was found that a
good level of satisfaction was 12.68 percent, and a very good contentment level was 87.32
percent.
