Considerations for choosing appropriate healthcare waste management treatment technologies: a case study from an East Midlands NHS Trust, in England

Through their decision-making processes, organisations can play a key role in addressing global environmental challenges. However, to be effective, these processes need to be based on evidence. This paper aims to evaluate the ‘optimum’ healthcare waste treatment technology, using a National Health Service organisation in the East Midlands region of England, as the case study organisation. Using analytic hierarchy process as the research tool, this research determined that the ‘optimum’ approach was a mix of technologies. However, this result was largely driven by costs considerations. Thus the findings suggest the need for a holistic approach to the decision-making process for the procurement of their healthcare waste management services. The use of analytic hierarchy process generally worked well in informing the decision-making process.