The Times of India 26.08.2013
1000 kg of bio-medical waste mix with municipal waste per day in Indore
INDORE: Everyday nearly one tonne of bio-medical waste are getting mixed with municipal waste posing serious health hazards. City generates around 3 tonnes of bio-medical waste per day out of which only 2 tonnes of it is getting disposed properly, while one tonne mainly generated from dispensaries and clinics are mixing with MSW of the city.
Asad Warsi of Hostech Eco Management Pvt Ltd, company which is into business of disposing bio-medical waste, said every hospitals and dispensaries generates bio-medical waste as well as municipal waste, so segregation of bio-medical waste at origin point is very import. Unfortunately it is not done at dispensaries spread across the city.
City has 287 hospitals and over 1300 dispensaries, many of which are located in residential complex. Hospitals of the city pay to agency for collection and disposal of bio-medical waste and Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) provides them a dedicated service for collection and disposal of municipal waste. But dispensaries and clinics are not taking segregation of waste seriously.
"One clinic may not produce a big amount of bio-medical waste but all the dispensaries of the city put together generates a good amount of it," said Warsi.
He addes bio-medical waste are very infectious and even a small amount of it can do great damage. One tonnes of bio-medical waste can infect total MSW produced in the city (700-800 tonnes of MSW produced daily) after getting mixed. This infected MSW get converted into compost at treatment plant and this compost used in agriculture field can pollute our food chain posing a threat to our health.
Realising the health hazard, IMC had started a dedicated service for collection of MSW from hospital in 2007 but it failed to produce desired result. In the absence of adequate number of vehicles for collecting MSW from hospitals waste are lifted only once in a week or fortnight.
Warsi said there is immediate need to increase the vehicles for this job so MSW can be lifted daily reducing the chances of its mixing with bio-medical waste. In addition to this civic should come up with a plan for dispensaries to prevent mixing of MSW with bio-medical waste.
City engineer of IMC Harbhajan Singh said two days back a meeting with association of hospitals and nursing homes was held to discuss the issue of waste management. IMC has proposed revised rate for collection of MSW from hospital and rates have been fixed in a way that earning from it can take care of vehcile's maintenance. Beside civic body is also planning to buy new vehicles.
As far dispensaries are concern plans are afoot to carry out random checking at dispensaries and if they were found mixing bio-medical waste with municipal waste then instant fine will be imposed.
