Green Tribunal recommends tougher measures to manage bio-medical waste during COVID pandemic

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has urged various State Pollution Control Boards and Pollution Control Committees to put serious effort in mitigating possible risk of unscientific disposal of bio-medical generated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NGT raised gaps in compliance of the Bio Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016.  It said the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) recent ‘Handling, Treatment and Disposal of Waste Generated during Treatment, Diagnosis, Quarantine of COVID-19 Patients’ must be revised.

The New Indian Express reports that the NGT expressed the need for revision of the guidelines so that all aspects of scientific disposal of liquid and solid waste management are taken care of not only at institution level but also at individual levels. This includes the manner of disposal of used Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), used bags, gloves, goggles, without the same getting mixed with other municipal solid waste causing contamination.

Along with awareness programmes, the Bench also expressed the need to review the effectiveness of the monitoring mechanism, through online and relevant software development. The bench made the observations after noting that out of 27 lakh Health Care Facilities (HCFS) identified, only 1.1 lakh are authorised under the BMW Management Rules, 2016.

Picture Credit: Banej, 3M N95 Particulate Respirator, CC BY-SA 3.0