Mater Dei Hospital produced 11,000 tonnes of clinical waste

Mater Dei Hospital produced approximately 11,000 tonnes of clinical waste last year, figures tabled in parliament show.

As expected, clinical waste was by far the largest waste stream to come out of the general hospital that produced a total of just over 13,000 tonnes of waste.

The statistics were tabled by Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela in reply to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Ian Vassallo Hagi.

Clinical waste poses a risk of infection, disease or harm to anyone who comes in contact with it and must be kept distinct from other waste streams.

Clinical waste, like abattoir waste, is incinerated at the Marsa Thermal Treatment Facility operated by Wasteserv.

The Marsa incinerator will eventually be replaced by a new facility at the Magħtab waste complex. This hazardous waste incinerator is distinct from another incinerator planned for the Magħtab complex that will burn unrecyclable domestic waste.

The second laargest waste stream at Mater Dei in 2024 was domestic waste with the hospital producing 2,000 tonnes of it.

Approximately 149 tonnes of hospital waste were recyclable materials, followed by 22 tonnes of shredded paper.

Cytotoxic, or chemotherapy waste, totalled around 17 tonnes. This waste stream contains substances with genotoxic properties—chemicals with the ability to damage the genetic information within a cell resulting in mutations. It also requires specialised disposal.

Almost eight tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment, technically referred as WEEE, from Mater Dei entered the waste stream in 2024. Around two tonnes of chemicals and just under a tonne of pharmaceuticals made up the rest of the waste produced in the hospital.

Mater Dei Hospital is the only public acute general hospital on Malta. A second general hospital is found in Gozo but this is much smaller.

Mater Dei has around 1,000 in-patient beds and sees around one million visitors per year on an outpatient and emergency basis, apart from employing hundreds of medical and non-medical staff.

No information on waste generated by other public hospitals was provided in the PQ.