This study examines clinical waste disposal and handling in the context of a community home-based care (CHBC)
programme in Kanye, southern Botswana. This qualitative study involved 10 focus group discussions with a total of
82 HIV/AIDS primary caregivers in Kanye, one-to-one interviews with the five nurses supervising the programme, and
participant observation. Numerous aspects of clinical or healthcare waste management were found to be hazardous
and challenging to the home-based caregivers in the Kanye CHBC programme, namely: lack of any clear policies for
clinical waste management; unhygienic waste handling and disposal by home-based caregivers, including burning
and burying the healthcare wastes, and the absence of pre-treatment methods; inadequate transportation facilities
to ferry the waste to clinics and then to appropriate disposal sites; stigma and discrimination associated with the
physical removal of clinical waste from homes or clinics; poor storage of the healthcare waste at clinics; lack of
incinerators for burning clinical waste; and a high risk of contagion to individuals and the environment at all stages
of managing the clinical waste.