Bathinda: India sits on a potential barrel of potential infections – while the longitous covid-19 pandemic has soared the generation of biomedical waste and the infrastructure of the state to manage this very dangerous waste is on the verge of destruction, finding this new assessment, finding a new judgment.
From the Center for Science and Environment (CSE).
Statistics tell stories – nearly 20 percent of Indian biomedical waste produces on certain days since the first wave of pandemic associated with Covid-19, said the data collected by the Central Polution Control Agency (CPCB) uses the Covid19BWM application, designed to track the waste produced due to a pandemic.
However, even a decent percentage may be less representatives, warning assessment.
Atin Biswas, Program Director, Solid Waste Management Unit, CSE said: “While Kaseload Covid-19 increased by 234 percent between the first waves and both pandemics, Covid-19 biomedical generations rose only 11 percent.
CPCB associated this incompatibility for better separation From waste, but our research showed clearly down the representation.
“Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh, Deputy Program Manager of the CSE Solid Waste Management Unit, said:” The challenge is to monitor the flow of covid-19 waste.
This waste has innumerable sources starting from each -Masing households to the center of insulation and emergency quarantine camps.
Although the Supreme Court made reporting through the compulsory Covid19BWM application in July 2020, until December 2020, only 184 of the 198 state biomedical waste treatment facilities updated their waste handling data on the application.
On May, the number drops to 168.
“The report found the cost of L The generator waits are worse on this account.
On November 2020, 100,000 generators shared their information on the application.
But in May 2021, when India contributed almost half of the world’s new cases, only 5,084 generators had shared their data on the application.
“The bottom of the calculation and such gross under-roading in Covid-19 is a matter of concern, especially because of geographic changes in infections from urban areas to rural areas, where the mechanism of tracking patients in real time is almost non-existent,” said Biswas.
India has a biomedical waste processing capacity of 826 tons per day, according to CPCB.
Assessment said this capacity was very inadequate to handle a surge in Covid-19 cases, as witnessed in September 2020 or May 2021.
During the second wave of pandemic, 22 of the 35 countries and the Indian union region produced more biomedical waste than they could handle.
, In May 2021, when India recorded the maximum number of new cases, Covid-19 contributed 33 percent of biomedical waste produced throughout the country.
This seems to have greatly flooded the biomedical waste processing infrastructure that has been drawn, recorded an assessment.
Very massive volume in Haryana where Covid-19 waste produces 47 percent of the total biomedical waste, Himachal Pradesh 40 percent, Delhi 39 percent.
The large drive vaccination that has been done in India will add to the burden of biomedical waste.
“Any vaccines produce one waste syringe and needle and every 10-20 vaccination produces a glass of waste glass.
They are biomedical waste that need to be disposed of carefully,” said Singh.
At the end of the vaccination drive, which is expected to be the middle of the end of this year, the country will produce more than 1.3 billion syringes and needles used and more than 100 million glass bottles thrown away.
“Do we have the capacity to deal with this large covid waste mountain that will soon come down to us?” Singh asked.
Assessment offers several recommendations to improve the situation: Intensify awareness among citizens to enforce separation to the source, ensure the registration of all generators and waste processors in the Covid-19 BWM application, limit the use of PPE kit and single equipment to only workers for the only frontline workers, and More attention to the countryside inland where the virus has started its establishment, among others.
“While we focus on prevention through steps such as social distance, use of masks, hand laundering and vaccination, we should not leave a teaching backdoor for the virus to spread through waste,” said Biswas.