KURNOOL: Kurnool principal district and sessions judge V. Radhakrishna Kripa Sagar said biomedical waste disposal in private nursing homes and government hospitals had become a cause of concern.
“Lack of incinerators, trained staff and indiscriminate use of non-biodegradable material are taking a toll on public health. With the outbreak of Covid-19, there is unmanageable growth in waste generation,” he observed. Andhra Pradesh generated non-Covid biomedical waste of 15.05 tonnes per day during the first nine months of the current year. Covid biomedical waste generated during the said period was 10.597 tonnes per day. The total biomedical waste generated in the state amounts to 25.7 tonnes.
Speaking at a seminar on ‘Biomedical Waste Management – Pan-India Awareness and Outreach Programme’ on Saturday, Kripa Sagar said indiscriminate disposal of biomedical waste by private medical homes was affecting the environment. They had a bounden duty to dispose of the harmful biomedical waste in a responsible manner, he cautioned. He sought the implementation of barcoding and GPS tracking for biomedical waste.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data shows that the non-Covid waste generated in the country during 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20 is estimated to be 531 tons per day (TPD), 608 TPD, and 615 TPD respectively, based on the information provided by pollution control boards. Further, incremental biomedical waste (BMW) generated during treatment, diagnosis, and quarantine of Covid-19 infected or suspected patients from healthcare facilities, quarantine centres, camps, sample collection centres, laboratories, home care and home isolations adds up to the mountains of hazardous waste, the CPCB notes.
As per the information compiled through the Covid-19 BWM app, a total of 56,898.14 tons of Covid-19 infected waste was generated between June 2020 to June 2021.
A CPCB engineer said bio-medical waste generated from the hospitals shall be treated and disposed of by a common biomedical waste treatment and disposal facility. There are 200 authorised common bio-medical waste treatment and disposal facilities in 28 states for environmentally safe disposal of biomedical waste.
