Sanitation workers and rag pickers are at risk from handling unmarked medical waste emerging from homes where Covid-19 patients are quarantined, medical experts and waste management specialists warned. Discarded masks, gloves and tissues could be potential sources for the spread of this highly contagious virus, they said.
Complaints received by the government for violation of rules related to the disposal of biomedical waste included its mixing with general waste, fears of “virus spreading”, illegal dumping of hospital waste in agricultural land, burning of obsolete medicines and so on.
Biomedical waste generation per day increased by 18 percent from 517 tonnes in 2016 to 608 tonnes in 2018. Currently, there are 200 common biomedical waste treatment facilities in operation in India and 28 more are being installed.
‘Workers must have safety gear, waste be incinerated’
CPCB rules are being followed rigorously, said officials at Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd, a Hyderabad-based company that handles biomedical waste in 18 cities and 20 facilities across the country for around 350,000 healthcare establishments including hospitals, clinics, research labs and so on.
“We are strictly following the relevant guidelines issued by the CPCB,” said Masood Mallick, joint managing director, REEL. “Waste arising from Covid-19 is packaged in double bags and transported in separate, designated vehicles and incinerated in dual chambers that operate at 1050 degree Celsius as soon as the waste reaches the designated treatment facility.”
The staff has been issued coveralls, masks, safety goggles, gloves, footwear and boot covers and trained to deal with biomedical waste, as per Mallick. They are also expected to disinfect all surfaces and vehicles. Given that most small hospitals and clinics are shut, the generation of biomedical waste has remained constant but the company is dealing a lot more with discarded face masks, gloves and tissues, he added.
Sanitation workers should not be engaged directly in handling solid waste generated by households without protective gear, said Deepak Saxena, professor at Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar. “The government can only advise but the community needs to act responsibly when it comes to disposal of household waste,” he said.
Solution Box
- Decontaminate waste with sanitisers, put into a separate bag and bin;
- Use reusable cloth masks that can be washed and reused;
- For quarantine camps and home care of the suspected patients, the CPCB has advised collection of biomedical waste in yellow bags; bins containing these should be handed over to authorised collectors;
- Sanitary staff should be provided safety gear such as masks and gloves.
(Mallapur is a senior analyst with IndiaSpend.)
This copy was published in a special arrangement with IndiaSpend.
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