Safe management of health-care waste is essential to protect patients, health workers and communities, prevent pollution and support safe, high-quality health services. To help countries and health facilities strengthen practice, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new free online course, ‘ Advanced health care waste management, including considerations for treatment, mercury and pharmaceutical waste ‘, available on the WHO Academy online learning platform.
Developed by WHO and UNICEF with contributions from partners, the self-paced course provides practical guidance for people responsible for planning, managing and improving health-care waste services. It covers the full waste pathway, from classification and segregation through storage, transport, treatment and finally disposal, as well as waste minimization, recycling, treatment capacity, infrastructure planning and the safe management of mercury-containing devices and pharmaceutical waste. The six-module course includes knowledge checks, a final assessment and confirmation of participation certificate.
Significant gaps in waste management remain in health-care facilities worldwide. New WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme estimates released this week show that in 2025, 71% of health-care facilities had basic waste management services, while 21% had limited services and 7% had no services. Facilities serving an estimated 571 million people had no waste management service at all. In these facilities, waste was neither safely segregated nor safely treated and disposed of.
“Safe health-care waste management is fundamental to quality care, infection prevention and control and the protection of health workers, communities and the environment,” said Bruce Gordon, WHO Director a.i., Department of Environment, Climate Change, One Health and Migration. “This course gives health facility teams, planners and decision-makers practical knowledge they can use to improve waste management in their own settings.”
The course is designed for health facility staff and managers, health-care waste workers, health planners, environmental health professionals, policy makers and technical partners. No prerequisite knowledge is required. It is available in English and can generally be completed in two hours or less, either in one sitting or over several sessions.
Around 85% of health-care waste is non-hazardous, making effective segregation and waste prevention particularly important. Poorly managed hazardous waste can expose workers and communities to infection and toxic substances, contaminate soil and water and release dangerous pollutants through uncontrolled burning. Safe waste management depends not only on treatment equipment, but also on standards, trained staff, financing, monitoring, infrastructure and clear responsibilities.
