BHUBANESWAR: With the rising number of coronavirus cases in the State, bio-medical waste generated from Covid hospitals has also increased exponentially in the last one month. The surge, experts said, may trigger new challenges.
Over the past fortnight, more than 33,700 kg bio-medical waste was generated from 16 Covid hospitals, care centres and testing facilities. For the same period last month, the amount of waste generated at 14 centres was around 14,700 kg. Last month, the total bio-medical waste generated from 14 key centres in Twin City, Angul, and Jajpur among other places was more than 40,000 kg. Besides, there were additional biomedical waste generated at general hospitals and other facilities.
At present, bio-medical waste is being managed and incinerated by a firm, Sani Clean Private Limited. The firm’s sanitary workers collect the bio-medical waste from major Covid hospitals, including KIIMS, SUM, Capital Hospital, AIIMS Bhubaneswar, Ashwini Hospital, DHH Kendrapada, etc and transport these to the incineration plant at Tangiapada village, 26 km from the City.
A few hospitals in the State, including MKCG Medical College and Hospital (Berhampur); SCB Cuttack and VSS Burla have their own incinerators, managed by third-party operators.
As waste piles up, the sanitation workers are also facing a challenging situation. From single shift, the incineration is now being conducted twice a day. “We have already started the second shift which lasts up to 9 pm. The first shift starts around 5 am. We have a team of 40 staff members,” said Mahesh Agarwal, owner of Sani Clean.But, how long can only one firm manage waste generated from various hospitals, Covid care centres in different parts of the State? On being asked about the feasibility and preparedness for Covid waste management, officials in the Health department remained tight-lipped. They claimed that the State Government had asked them not ‘to divulge any information regarding the Covid management.’
The reason behind the increase in amount of medical waste at Covid facilities was partly because of the June 10 guidelines of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)—the nodal agency which is responsible for drafting norms regarding handling, treating and disposing of waste from Covid facilities. As per the guidelines, leftover food and disposables from Covid facilities were also treated as biomedical waste. About 50 per cent of the medical waste here increased due to food waste from Covid hospitals, claimed the local firm.
Meanwhile, CPCB revised its guidelines for the fourth time on July 21 after facing opposition from the waste management firms. Henceforth, as per the new norms, leftover food and general solid waste from Covid health care facilities should not be mixed with biomedical waste. Earlier, the biomedical waste treatment operators had claimed that the efficiency of the incinerators are reduced due to introduction of food waste. Moreover, most of the incinerators can combust around 4,000 kg waste a day. And, all the incinerators in different parts of the country were being operated around the borderline. For instance, the daily collection of biomedical waste only from Covid hospitals on July 20 was 3436 kg. A slightest increase of waste from the facilities could have gone beyond incinerator capacity.
“The old CPCB guidelines had created problem for us (the waste management firms). The chances of leakage and spillage came into picture with the introduction of food waste. Moreover, at times hospitals didn’t use appropriate bags to collect the food waste. Segregation is also a challenge, even for the hospital staff,” added Mahesh.
No clarity on food waste
The revised guidelines of CBPC regarding handling of waste from Covid healthcare facilities brings a new challenge for the city administration to address. Even as the board has clearly stated that the general solid waste, including food and plastics, generated from the healthcare facilities be treated under Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, there’s still no clarity about the Covid waste management in the city. The revised guideline will give a go-ahead to the operator to refuse food waste and other solid waste from these facilities. But, then who will collect the same and how would it be treated? Neither the health department nor Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials responded to the question. Sources revealed that the waste generated from houses of Covid patients staying at home were not being sent to the biomedical waste incinerator operator in the city. So, what happens to the waste? Again, the officials didn’t respond.