Another Covid challenge

Medical waste treatment capacity has to be ramped up urgently

The focus of the Centre and state governments is now primarily on restraining the spread of Covid-19. In the process, however, a critical offshoot of this pandemic that has tended to be overlooked is the safe disposal of biomedical waste being generated at quarantine and treatment centres and homes of suspected patients. The volume of this hazardous refuse is swelling by the day, posing a huge challenge for urban civic bodies to dispose it of safely. Guidelines for scientific management of coronavirus-specific litter, released by the World Health Organization and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) right in the beginning