The Department of Environmental Quality classifies medical waste as:The Department of Environmental Quality classifies medical waste as:
1. Blood-Saturated Waste: Contaminated items that, if compressed, would drip release blood or other potentially infectious materials in a liquid or semi-liquid state. (Blood-saturated waste is considered infectious; blood-tainted waste is not.)
2. Pathological and Anatomical Waste: Tissues, organs, body parts, and body fluids removed during surgery and autopsy
3. Human Blood and Blood Products (known as liquid medical waste): Includes blood, serum, plasma, blood products, other potentially infectious materials
4. Cultures and Stocks of Infectious Agents: Also called microbiological waste. Includes specimens from medical and pathology laboratories; culture dishes and devices used to transfer, inoculate, and mix; and discarded live and attenuated vaccines
5. Sharps: Contaminated hypodermic needles, syringes, scalpel blades, Pasteur pipettes, and broken glass
6. Isolation Waste: Generated by hospitalized patients who are isolated to protect others from communicable disease
7. Contaminated Animal Carcasses, Body Parts, and Bedding: Also includes related wastes that may have been exposed to infectious agents during research or pharmaceutical testing
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