Prioritization of factors and selection of best business practice from bio-medical waste generated using best-worst method

Purpose Hospital activities restore health and save lives; yet they produce infectious waste that might harm people and the environment if not handled carefully. The sudden increase in bio-medical waste (BMW) generation was caused due to the outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the beginning of year 2020. There is a huge potential of businesses from BMW generated in the developing economies. The document destruction process would prove to be beneficial in determining the strategies and policies for the business from BMW. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate the factors that influence the business prospects from BMW in developing economies. Design/methodology/approach The study focuses on identifying 18 factors based on an extensive literature review, questionnaire, theoretical foundations and interviews with experts in the context of developing economies. These factors are categorized into four groups namely "Culture, education and microeconomics", "Infrastructure, social provision, and technology", "Policy and institution" and "Integrated waste management system". Consequently, these factors are prioritized to assist the decision-maker in comprehending the most critical aspects of accomplishing the best business practices. A framework based on the Best-Worst Method (BWM) is applied to evaluate and determine the significance of each identified factor. Findings The major contribution of this paper is to identify key factors that are responsible for successful implementation of the business practices from the generated BMW. The study also explains their nature, significance and inter-relationship among them using BWM. Current study applied a distinctive modeling approach to examine the contextual relationship among the key factors and to rank them as per their importance. The findings of the study suggest that "Setup for collection and segregation is the best alternative for business from BMW produced". Originality/value The paper also presents strategies, which can be adopted as a guiding step by the decision-makers to formulate policies for the effective business practice from BMW. This research is expected to stimulate future applications of the BWM to facilitate long-term decision-making.