4.2. Total number of beds, bed occupancy, and number of beds for infectious disease
As to the influence of individual factors, for every percent increase of bed occupancy, the annual general waste production increased 2.48 Tons and infectious waste 0.23 Tons (Table 4). The number of beds installed for infectious diseases treatment contributed only to the amount of infectious waste production. Although, in Table 2, a high standard deviation for the infectious waste production was observed at local hospitals, it may imply that there were greater variations in waste management at the local hospitals in Taiwan. The total number of local hospitals being surveyed in this study comprised only 8% (30/375) of the existing hospitals and was limited to facilities of specific specialties. However, we did observe the variation of waste production among different levels of medical establishments.