IJHR Open Access Abstract Background and Objectives: Hospitals usually generate large amounts of hazardous waste. If not managed properly, hospital waste can pose threats to public safety and damage the environment. Waste minimization is a waste management approach that focuses on reducing the amount and toxicity of hazardous wastes. This study pursues a two-fold purpose: 1) to gain insight into hospital waste minimization performance in Iran using a sample of public and private hospitals , 2) to compare WM performance between public and private hospitals. Methods: Data were collected using a questionnaire, designed based on WHO measures of hospital waste minimization. Ninety individuals from four public and three private hospitals were enrolled in this study using stratifed sampling. Data was summarized using descriptive statistical methods. T-test and ANOVA were used to compare the mean values. Findings: Average waste minimization score of the surveyed hospitals was 2.92 (from 5). No signifcant differ- ence in overall waste minimization performance was found between public and private hospitals. Waste segre- gation performance was found to be signifcantly higher in public hospitals, whereas private hospitals showed higher performance in managing storage of chemicals and pharmaceutical products. Conclusions: According to our results the status of waste minimization is unsatisfactory in Iranian hospitals. Our results also refect on lack of employee familiarity with the concepts and practices of waste minimization in Iranian hospitals. Insignifcant difference in score of waste minimization between public and private hospitals undermines the role of hospital ownership as a determinant of hospital waste minimization performance. Overall, this study em- phasizes the the immediacy of devising effective strategies to address the challenge of hospital waste management. Keywords: Waste Minimization, Hospital Waste, Waste Management Background and Objectives Although hospitals and medical centers are dedicated to delivery of healthcare services to the patients, they can also function as media for prevalence of diseases [1]. Any contact between infectious and non-infectious waste can lead to contamination of all the wastes involved [2]. Hos- pital wastes pose a risk for patients and personnel who handle these wastes. In addition, they underlie a wide va- riety of health and safety hazards for patients and health- care workers as well as outsiders [3]. Studies indicate that prevalence of infectious waste increases by 15.1% due to contact of general and medical wastes with infectious wastes [4]. In addition to health risks, the impact of hospi- tal wastes on the environment, in particular the risk of wa- ter, air, and soil contamination is a signifcant concern [5]. According to literature, 10-25% of medical wastes are classified as hazardous [4, 6, 7]. Despite the fact that the amount of infectious and hazardous waste is relatively small, inappropriate waste management in which infectious wastes are mixed with general wastes, can result in the entire volume becoming po- tentially infectious [8]. Safe and effective management of medical wastes is not only a legal requirement, but also an impor- tant social responsibility. Poor management of hos- pital wastes leads to a high risk of infection for those in contact with, compromising hospital hygiene, and Waste Minimization: A Survey in Iranian Public and Private Hospitals Marzieh Javadi 1* , Shandiz Moslehi 2 , Maryam Yaghoubi 3 , Faezeh Seirani 4 , Meshkat Abbasi 4 , Zahra Tayyebi 4 1 Health Management and Economic Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran 2 Department of Health Services Administration, School of Management and Economic Sciences, Islamic Azad University-Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran 3 Health Management Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4 Department of Health Services Administration, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran *Corresponding author: Marzieh Javadi, Health Management and Economic Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran, P.O.Box:81745-164, Tel: +98 113 7922026, Fax: + 98 113 6684799, E-mail: m_javadi@mng.mui.ac.ir International Journal of Hospital Research 2013, 2(1):25-30 www.ijhr.iums.ac.ir RESEARCH ARTICLE © 2013 Javadi et al.; licensee Iran University of Medical Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original work is cited properly.