Aafrin Kidwai 
A recent study by Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has found significant mismatch in government data on COVID-19 biomedical waste and infrastructure for managing this hazardous waste.
Mr Atin Biswas, programme director, Solid Waste Management unit, CSE says that while the COVID-19 caseload increased by a massive 234 per cent between the first and second waves of the pandemic, COVID-19 biomedical waste generation went up by only 11 per cent. “The CPCB attributes this mismatch to better segregation of the waste, but our research points clearly to under-representation,” Mr Biswas says.
Explains Mr Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh, deputy programme manager of CSE’s Solid Waste Management unit: “The challenge is to monitor the flow of COVID-19 waste. This waste has innumerable sources ranging from individual households to isolation centres and makeshift quarantine camps. Even though the Supreme Court made reporting through COVID19BWM app mandatory in July 2020, till December 2020, only 184 of the country’s 198 biomedical waste treatment facilities were updating their waste handling data on the app. By May, the number had dropped to 168.”
The report finds waste generators fare even worse on this account. In November 2020, 100,000 generators shared their information on the app. But in May 2021, when India accounted for almost half of the world’s new cases, only 5,084 generators had shared their data on the app. “Such gross under-counting and under-reporting on COVID-19 is a matter of concern, especially because of the changing geography of the infection from urban to rural areas, where mechanisms to track patients in real time are almost non-existent,” says Biswas.
In terms of available infrastructure, India has a biomedical waste treatment capacity of 826 tonnes per day, as per the CPCB. The assessment says this capacity is highly inadequate to handle a surge in COVID-19 cases, as was witnessed in September 2020 or May 2021. During the pandemic’s second wave, 22 of India’s 35 states and Union territories generated more biomedical waste than they could handle.
The ongoing vaccination drive will further add to the biomedical waste burden. “Every vaccine generates one waste syringe and needle and every 10-20 vaccinations generate one waste glass vial. They are biomedical waste that need to be disposed of carefully,” says Singh.
As per the CSE’s estimate, the country would have generated over 1.3 billion used syringes and needles and more than 100 million discarded glass vials by the end of the year, which India does not have the capacity to deal with, according to the report.
Disclaimer: This article is based on a press release issued by CSE, available here.
Picture credit: Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay
