International Journal of Basic & Applied Sciences IJBAS-IJENS Vol:13 No:04 44 I J E N S IJENS @ August - IJBAS - 9090 - 135704 Evaluation of Wastewater Discharge from Hospitals in Amman -JORDAN Kholoud Al-Ajlouni, Saleh Shakhatreh, Nuha AL- Ibraheem , Musa Jawarneh Abstract - Hospital waste management is a crucial environmental and public safety issue. Discharge water is one of the main sources of groundwater and rivers contamination if not treated efficiently Hospitals consume an important volume of water a day, and generate multiple amounts of infectious and hazardous polluted discharge water to the drain .These pollutants should be treated by the WWTP of each hospital before release to the municipal drainage. This study aims at presenting the primary results on characterization of hospital wastewaters in some hospitals in Amman city – Jordan. Twelve major hospitals were selected for this study in Amman ranging from 930 to 32 bed per hospital, none of them have a wastewater treatment plant, WWTP, and the wastewater is rejected untreated to the sewage. This addition of polluted wastewater will increase the load to the WWTPs of the city and reduce the efficiency of treatment processes leading to hazardous pollution in the future. Analysis of the concentration of biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids, sulfate, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, chlorides, and oils and grease were made during the period (1/6/2010 - 31/12/2010). The study showed an increase in the concentration of pollutants which is higher than the Jordan standards of wastewaters. Index Term-- Hospital effluents, Kalida graph software, Wastewater. I. INTRODUCTION The impact of polluted sewage on surface and ground water is widely regarded as a serious threat to human health and environment in many developing countries of the world [5],[6],[8] [1],[2],[3]. This case applies to Jordan where there is a serious inadequacy of sanitation with resulting pollution from the discharge of untreated sewage into the surface water and groundwater. Ministry of Health in Jordan (MOH) is the main agency responsible for monitoring and managing medical waste sector. MOH has developed and issued regulation no. 1 in the year 2001 that deals with the management of medical waste. The regulation defined the general medical waste as all solid, liquid and gaseous wastes that are generate d at different healthcare institutions, medical laboratories, medical research centers, pharmaceutical industries, veterinary clinics and household health care activities. This definition implies that the waste that is generated by the kitchen and offices of the hospitals and clinics waste is covered under general medical waste category. Kh. S. Al-Ajlouni, Author in Chemical Engineering Department, Al-Huson College University, Al-Balqa Applied University P.O. Box 50 , Al-Huson Jordan, ajlouni@huson.edu.jo S. shakhatreh, Author, Al Balqa' Applied University, Al Huson University College, P.O. Box 50, Al-Huson Jordan , shakhatreh_s@yahoo.com. Nuha AL- Ibraheem , Author, Al Balqa' Applied University, Al Huson University College, P.O. Box 50, Al-Huson Jordan, alrashidnm@hotmail.com Musa Jawarneh, Author, Al Balqa' Applied University, Al Huson University College, P.O. Box 50, Al-Huson Jordan, musa_jawarneh@yahoo.com To differentiate between the general medical waste and the hazardous medical waste, the regulation defined the hazardous medical waste as that part of general medical waste that may pose health risks due to its constituents that may have one or more of the following properties: infectious, pathological, sharps, chemicals, pharmaceutical, cytotoxic or radioactive [4 ], [5 ]. Heavy wastewater released from hospitals may cause many serious environmental problems. These problems vary upon the activity and nature of hospitals, as well as its location and size of the wastewater discharged [6], [7]. Hospitals consume an important volume of water a day. The value generally admitted for hospitals varies from 400 to 1200 liters/day/bed [1]. The amount of wastewater discharged from hospitals is estimated based on per capita production in America to be 1000 liters/person/day [7], [8], [1]. WHO reported that, about 85% of hospital waste is non-hazardous, 10% infective and 5% not infective but hazardous in the United States of America [9]. Hospital effluents are loaded with pathogenic microorganisms, pharmaceutical partially metabolized, radioactive elements and other heavy metals and toxic chemical substances (Cu, Fe, Pb, Cd, Ni, Pt, Hg, Cyanide, phenol and others) [2], [3]. Amman is the capital of Jordan, has the population of 2,315,600 in the year 2009. The total no. of hospitals in Amman is 53 distributed in 4 major sectors and the no. of beds is shown in table (1). The average no. of beds per population is 26 beds per 10,000 inhabitants. These numbers are increasing rapidly through the years due to rapid development in the healthcare services which has put Jordan among countries with advanced health care services in the Mediterranean Region. During the last 10 years, the number of the kingdom’s hospitals increased by 32% [4] . According to a report issued by the Jordan Environment Society JES, 32% of the Kingdom’s hospitals were applying some sort of incineration combustion of the medical waste. The remaining hospitals are disposing the medical waste along with the municipal waste stream into landfills. JES report estimated that the average generation rate of the medical waste in the middle region hospitals (Amman, Zarqa, Madaba and Balqa) is about 0.5 kg/bed/day. Amman’s hospitals produce about 2.3 tons /day [10]. The Division of Laboratory and Environment Directorate of Amman reports indicated that all hospitals in Amman city do not have WWTPs. The risk of this hazardous discharged water is the access to the municipal sewage treatment plant of the city, which is primarily designed to treat the sewage of houses, and therefore exceed the capacity of the sewage plant, so the treatment process will be quite inefficient. Most researches focused on solid waste from hospitals and clinics, because of lack previous studies in this field, this research was conducted to identify the pollutants by Amman hospitals into the main sewage system, and their impact on the environment in Jordan. Finally a statically analysis of linear correlations and regressions between some selected variables was conducted.