Indian Express 01.06.2010
Biomedical waste disposal gets Passco eco award
Anuradha Mascarenhas Tags : environment, biomedical waste disposal Posted: Tue Jun 01 2010, 03:09 hrs
Pune: The Passco Environmental Solutions has won this year’s Vasundhara award for best environmental practices. Passco collects, segregates and disposes a total of 1,500 kg bio medical waste in the city on a daily basis.Said P K Mirashe, head of the regional unit of MPCB, “One of the reasons Passco has been selected for the Vasundhara award is their unique vehicle tracking system.”
Adjudged as the best agency for controlling pollution and complying with Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) norms, the award will be given to Passco on World Environment Day on June 5.
The MPCB will replicate the similar GPS tracking device in its vehicles to prevent environmental damage and health hazards.
Passco has 3,500 bio-medical waste generators registered with them, both in Pune Municipal Corporation and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation areas. The waste is collected daily from more than 400 collection points. There are nine dedicated collection vehicles equipped with electronic weighing and bar code reading facility. “Manual interference is avoided in total operations as the entire operation of recording of waste is automated,” said Dr D D Chandakkar, assistant health officer, PMC, who has appointed the agency to collect, transport and dispose bio-medical waste at Kailash crematorium.
According to Pradeep Mulay of Passco, founded by Sunil Dandawate and Pradeep Mulay in 2005 in Pune, bio-medical waste is collected from PCMC and PMC areas and treated in a scientific manner.
“The bio-medical waste disposal facilities are equipped with incinerator with pollution controlling wet ventury scrubber, waste autoclave, waste shredder, gas monitoring device, effluent treatment plant and computerisation,” said Mulay who pointed out that in Pune a total of 2,200 hospitals, laboratories, pathology labs, blood banks and clinics are registered with them to dispose bio-medical waste. “We have a fully-computerised set up and an interactive website. Doctors can also track our vehicles on their mobile phones or laptops to find our exact location before picking up the waste,” said Mulay.
Eco-friendly waste disposal
* Passco has 3,500 bio-medical waste generators
* Waste is collected daily from more than 400 points
* 9 dedicated collection vehicles equipped with electronic weighing and bar code reading facility
* 2,200 hospitals, laboratories, pathology labs, blood banks and clinics are registered with Passco
* Doctors can trac k their vehicles on mobilephones, laptops
