By Koustav Kashyap
The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has posed numerous challenges before India on multiple fronts such as health, economy and environment. One such impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on our environment which is exponentially increasing is biomedical waste.
Data suggests that average generation of Covid-19 related biomedical waste during May 2021 is 203 tonnes per day. The ‘peak’ generation was 250 tonnes per day which was reported on May 10. The earlier ‘peak’ generation in 2020 during the 1st week was in the range of 180-220 tonnes per day. While there are guidelines to handle medical waste with utmost care and dispose them safely, the exponential rise in the quantity of biomedical waste due to pandemic and lack of awareness on how to dispose them safely has made the task very challenging and difficult.
Biomedical waste is a hazardous waste which has both microbiological and biological contamination, which means that it has potential to spread various kinds of diseases. Plus, we have various medicines which are also toxic in nature. So, both from chemical and biological perspective, biomedical waste is hazardous to humans. Therefore, we have a separate law ‘Biomedical Waste Management Rules’ to manage biomedical waste and we have a separate facility which is called a common biomedical waste treatment facility. The point is that it is a special kind of waste and it has to be managed very carefully because of its potential to cause harm to everyone.
Covid has added another challenge right now, because the Covid-19 waste is not only generated in hospitals but from homes too. In fact, 80% of Covid-19 patients are recuperating or have recuperated at home. They were quarantined and recovered at home whereas only about 20 percent had to go to hospital. These 80% patients have generated some amount of biomedical waste at their homes and we do not have any kind of facility to manage that waste. Essentially that biomedical waste has been dumped in the normal municipal waste, whereas in hospitals you have some kind of system. In fact, good hospitals have very good systems to manage biomedical waste, whereas some local hospitals don’t have those facilities. Healthcare facilities must provide a storage area for medical waste until it is collected for treatment and disposal. Storage area should be selected carefully which is unapproachable to the general public and must exhibit warning symbols & signs. It should be stored in a dry and secured area before being transported. The area must be protected from water, wind, rodents, insects and animals. Hazardous biomedical waste should not be stored for more than 3 months
Basically, this waste is infectious so we must take care; we should treat it properly and keep it in a proper colour coded container. The larger concern is that of managing Covid-19 waste at homes because we do not have systems to manage biomedical waste at home.
The news reports suggest that front-line workers, municipal workers have been impacted extensively during this pandemic; many have died. The waste generated at home is hazardous to the frontline workers who we have seen in the 1st wave and now in 2nd wave have been the most vulnerable. Our general assumption is that people are getting infected through respiratory droplets, aerosols and by touching surfaces but am very confident that as we are not managing the biomedical waste very well there may be large number of people getting infected because they are coming in contact with biomedical waste.
The ‘Biomedical Waste Management Rules’ came into existence in 1998 and after that there were so many amendments. The rules say that waste should be properly collected, disposed with treatment by incineration, torch technology where the treatment is given first and then finally disposed of.
All the legal provisions that we have right now is to deal with biomedical waste in hospitals whereas the majority of patients are getting treated at home; are quarantined at home and therefore whatever biomedical waste they are generating is at their own place. Unfortunately, we have not created a system to collect bio-medical waste separately from homes and to dispose of that waste into biomedical waste treatment facilities.
The second issue is that we have about 200 biomedical waste treatment facilities across the country but they are in certain districts like Delhi, Mumbai but in far off corners of the country there is no biomedical waste treatment facility even in the hospitals. The waste generated should be collected properly because if it infects water bodies then it will be a very big challenge. It should not mix with the municipal solid waste and it should be directly incinerated or gasified.
Another issue is that we have seen people throwing dead bodies of Covid affected people in the rivers. That too is a major source of pollution. If water from the river Ganga or any other river is tested, chances are that pollution through dead bodies would be very high. This is also something that we need to take care of and the administration should ensure that such a practice is immediately stopped.
The need of the hour is to make people aware that SOPs do exist and people should follow these rules very strictly. We should encourage people to keep the waste at home at an isolated place and when the waste collector comes, he should be informed very clearly that this is infected waste. The District Administrations will have to come out with very clear guidelines on what to do with that waste. The exercise is futile if the waste collectors do not know where to dispose of it and ultimately it reaches the municipal waste.
The ultimate goal obviously for all of us should be to drastically reduce environmental damage to fight the Covid-19 pandemic by treating biomedical waste with its exponential rise that we have seen over the past few months in the proper manner. Waste generation should be minimized for the protection of the environment and general public health. People must be sensitized to the issues related to biomedical waste and should participate in the programs organized for waste minimization. The medical employees must be trained to create awareness and foster responsibilities for prevention of exposure and unsafe disposal of such waste. The 2nd wave has led to a lot of hazards. We all have to understand that a healthy environment at the end of the day is essential for a healthy life and that is what should matter to us.