의료폐기물 발생량 예측 모델링과 병원 자가처리 확대에 따른 시나리오 기반 영향 분석

초록

Medical waste generation in South Korea rose through 2018 but has since declined structurally, owing to the 2019 reclassification of disposable diapers as general waste, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2024-2025 resident-doctor strike, even as population aging drives underlying demand upward. This study couples demand forecasting with linear programming (LP)-based policy evaluation. An ensemble of ARIMAX (autoregressive integrated moving average with exogenous variables) and Ridge regression, trained on 2000-2024 national data from the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS), attains a holdout mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 14.42% and forecasts that generation will surpass the current treatment capacity of 259,150 tonnes per year around 2026. Three policy scenarios are evaluated over 2025-2034 using a regional multi-period LP with interregional transport and facility lead times: (S1) on-site sterilization expansion, (S2) new incineration, and (S3) expansion of existing incineration. On-site expansion coincides with the unrestricted optimum under Low and Medium demand, yielding a net present cost about 8.3% and 9.9% below existing-plant and new-plant incineration, respectively; it remains cheaper once the adoption ceiling exceeds roughly 25% even under High demand, and new incineration is never optimal. These findings support the recent regulatory relaxation of on-site sterilization standards and indicate that diversifying away from centralized incineration is econom ically viable.

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