Routine solid waste sent to incinerators along with biomedical waste puts strain on treatment facilities

Cities across the country are reporting how the disposal of routine solid waste mixed with COVID-19 waste such as personal protection equipment (PPE), gloves and masks from quarantine centres, has put a massive strain on their incinerators. These incinerators are designed to treat biomedical waste and, hence, its efficiency reduced when the load is increased due to such waste.

Pune’s Kailash crematorium is one such example. On a daily basis, the incineration facility at Kailash crematorium deals with minimum 2,200 kg of Covid-19 waste, which mainly consists of PPE. Its capacity has reportedly gone down by 40 per cent.

As a result, on some days, routine biomedical waste generated in hospitals is sent to other incineration facilities in Baramati and Satara. Sunil Dandawate, Director of PASSCO Environmental Solutions, authorised by the PMC and the PCMC to run the common biomedical waste treatment facility informed The Indian Express that the Pune facility was overloaded and excess biomedical waste was being sent to Baramati for proper disposal.

According to Dandawate, the incinerator’s daily capacity of treatment and disposal is 4,000 kg of biomedical waste. Another 1,200 kg of the waste could be autoclaved.

With hostels, marriage halls and lodges being used as quarantine centres, there was an additional generation of contaminated solid waste leading to an overload at the common incineration facility at Kailash crematorium, said Nitin Shinde, Sub-Regional Officer at Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (Pune). Shinde added that there were 30 such facilities in the state and Pune operators had been directed to send a proposal on their requirements to upgrade the incineration facility.

Picture Credit: Used with the kind permission of Standardkessel GmbH