Managing biomedical waste

Guidelines must be followed in handling Covid-related stuff

Safe handling and elimination of biomedical waste have been a formidable challenge ever since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has become more so now due to an enormous increase in the tally of home-quarantined patients. Much of the bio-waste generated at homes, including discarded protective gear, gets mixed up with the household garbage and finds its way to landfill sites, disseminating the infection en route. The management of such hazardous waste at hospitals and other Covid-designated medical centres, too, cannot be said to be perfect, though many of them have put in place, at least for the record, the facilities needed for its proper disposal. Laxity in the segregation of the infectious material from the rest of the refuse and its careless disposal are the major issues. Discarded Covid-related stuff, such as masks, face shields, gloves, shoe covers and even the personal protective equipment, can often be found littered on the roadsides, around the hospitals and healthcare centres, parking sites, cremation grounds and other public areas. It poses a grave health hazard for the general public. Sweepers and waste pickers are particularly at risk as they do not have any protective cover or access to sanitation and safety facilities.

There is, indeed, no dearth of rules and regulations for the safe disposal of biomedical waste. These norms, framed under the Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016, are regularly updated by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) taking the prevailing Covid-19 situation into account. The latest CPCB guidelines require the bio-waste to be packed in double layered yellow bags and transported in specialised vehicles to the designated common biomedical waste treatment facilities or to the waste-to-energy plants for incineration, autoclaving or burning to generate energy. However, these norms are hardly followed the way they should be. The CPCB has also created a special mobile application, “Covid-19 BWM (Biomedical Waste Management) App”, to keep a tab on pandemic-related information, including the handling of infectious junk. However, the required data is seldom uploaded in full by the concerned bio-waste handling agencies, though it is mandatory for them to do so. The healthcare experts now suggest that the yellow bags should be bar-coded to track the source of the unsafe garbage and its movement to the waste treatment centres. Such a system has been tried out with a fair amount of success in some towns in Kerala and can be emulated elsewhere as well.  

Notably, the CPCB guidelines also provide for training the handlers of perilous waste in infection-prevention methods, such as hand hygiene, respiratory etiquettes, use of protective equipment, social distancing and other needed measures through video films and demonstrations. However, this directive, too, generally goes unheeded by civic authorities in most places. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Delhi-based union of waste collectors and sweepers is demanding that they should be treated on a par with other frontline Covid-19 workers and provided with proper safety gear. They have also argued that since they live in small dwelling units lacking space for home quarantine, separate isolation houses should be established for them. This demand seems to merit consideration. The most critical need, however, is to make information about safe handling of biomedical waste a regular feature of the Covid-19 related public awareness campaign. Otherwise, contagious Covid-19 waste would continue to pose a grave health hazard.