A medical waste incinerator plant was commissioned near the city hospital No. 16 in Tashkent. 90 thousand tons of medical waste are generated annually in Uzbekistan, said Jamshid Khasanov, chief expert at the Waste Management and Circular Economy Development Agency. Until now, they have been taken to special landfills, like other types of waste.
A presidential decree was signed in 2024, which envisaged new procedures and mechanisms based on the zero waste principle. In line with the decree, the US company Sayar launched the first ever medical waste incinerator plant in the country.
Now, the plant is receiving medical waste from Tashkent hospitals No. 16 and No. 17, as well as from private clinics. The plant's capacity allows burning up to 6 tons of waste per day for 20 hours, with 3 tons of medical waste being incinerated and disposed of per day. The heat from disposals is supplied to hospitals No. 16 and No. 17, he added.
Soon, medical waste bins are planned to be installed at garbage collection points near apartment buildings, which will make easier to take them to the plant, he noted.
Waste is stored in a separate refrigeration room, said Nikolai Kundiy, operator of the ECO-300 waste incinerator.
"We process up to 300 kg of waste per hour, including syringes, masks, glass ampoules, etc. Since the furnace heats up to 1150 degrees, all medical waste burns completely. After disposal, up to 3% of ash remains. We pack it in special containers, which are then taken away,” he added.
According to him, the launch of the plant created 15 jobs.
Sayar will erect plants all over Uzbekistan
Jamshid Khasanov explained why the American company Sayar is implementing this project:
“Similar project proposals also came from investors from China, South Korea and Finland. But we were primarily interested in Sayar’s technology. We also noticed that its filtration and combustion systems are safer, so we chose the Sayar project, and all the equipment was brought from overseas,” the agency official added.
According to Dzhamshid Khasanov, similar plants for the effective disposal of medical waste are currently being erected at the Tashkent Medical Academy (TashMI) Clinic No. 2 in the Almazar District and the Tashkent Pediatric Medical Institute (SamPI) in the Tashkent District of the Tashkent province.
