India is now choking on medical waste

Fighting the coronavirus has had severe economic fall-outs. But there is another global catastrophe looming large over us – medical waste.

In India, latest figures from the Indian Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) show that hospitals, quarantine centres and households have since produced more than 18,000 tonnes of biomedical waste. It said more than 5500 tonnes of COVID-19 waste were produced in September alone and the amount will increase as case numbers rise. The biomedical waste includes personal protective equipment (PPE) such as face masks, face shields and shoe covers. Those items are mostly made of polypropylene, which takes more than 450 years to decompose. Human tissue, cotton swabs, syringes and bedsheets are also among the waste.

India’s hospitals generated more than 100 tonnes of biomedical waste each day before the pandemic, according to the board, averaging 500 grams per bed. This increased to between 2 kg and 4.5 kg during the pandemic. In its efforts to curb this alarming trend, the CPCB has set strict guidelines for the safe disposal of waste from hospitals and other medical centres that deal with COVID-19 patients at nearly 200 waste treatment plants across the country.

According to the World Health Organisation, every month the world needs 89 million plastic medical masks and 1.6 million protective goggles, which are made of polypropylene and may take even 500 years to degrade in the ocean.

A Lancet Global Health study states that worldwide, it is estimated that at least 5.2 million people, including 4 million children, die each year because of diseases related to unmanaged medical waste. Considering the transmission of the coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) globally, excessive biomedical waste has become a new major threat to public health and the environment. Improper handling of hospital waste might aggravate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to medical staff and people who handle waste.

India’s oceans and rivers are choking too! Experts estimate that Asian rivers are responsible for 86% of the total global plastic waste in the oceans.

The New Indian Express reports that, since April, India has been manufacturing an average of 450,000 PPE suits every day, according to government sources. While these suits have helped contain the spread of the pandemic in a big way, they are now posing an immense risk to the ecosystem. Made primarily out of single-use plastic, the necessity for these suits has reversed all the ground gained by banning such plastic products in parts of the country. While most hospitals and authorities have taken extreme caution to ensure that Covid-related medical waste is scientifically disposed, the reports says that the flip side is that the disposal of non-Covid medical waste now gets ignored. The country does not have adequate facilities to treat medical waste and the burden has increased dramatically due to the pandemic.

A Mongabay-India report points out that in one beach in Vishakapatnam, post the lockdown, divers removed over 1500 kg of waste over three rounds till September 27. This is the Rushikonda beach, which was recommended by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for the coveted ‘Blue Flag’ certification. The eco-label is given to the cleanest beaches in the world meeting stringent environmental and safety criteria. Over the years, there has been a 70% decline in marine species with many figuring as endangered species in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. The single-use plastic protective gears are a new threat to aquatic lives.NGO volunteers claim that Mumbai’s Juhu beach clean-up drives during May-August, they found 10,000 masks, 1050 gloves and PPE kits discarded along the coastline.

UNIDO officials are engaged in developing and implementing environmentally sound practices and techniques for medical waste with more than 160 hospitals across Karnataka, Punjab, Odisha, Maharashtra and Gujarat. They have stressed on the need to halt the spread of Covid-19 through all possible infection channels, including from contact with or mismanagement of infectious waste. Experts have said it is possible with proven biomedical waste management practices and techniques, and never before has it been so urgent to adopt these.

India joined the United Nations Environment’s ‘Clean Seas Campaign’ in 2018. The first step towards the goal was to frame a National Marine Litter Policy by studying marine pollution on the country’s 7,500 km coastline. But work got stalled due to the pandemic, the lockdown and the focus on economic issues.

But in this race, we cannot and must not ignore such serious environmental dangers – we need to act immediately!