Biomedical waste, a matter of concern amidst COVID-19 upsurge

NEW DELHI: With the number of COVID-19 patients in home isolation in Delhi skyrocketing in recent weeks, the city’s municipal corporations have revamped their biomedical waste collection programmes to fulfil the sanitation and safety standards needed to keep residents and government personnel safe.

However, unions and organisations working with informal waste pickers are concerned about the mixing of toxic waste with general municipal rubbish, as well as the absence of safety equipment among sanitation employees. More than 35,000 COVID-19 patients in Delhi are isolating at home, according to a health alert issued by the Delhi government on Sunday. According to a senior official from the South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s (SDMC) sanitation department, the municipal body has sent one vehicle for each of the 104 wards under the corporation to collect biomedical waste from houses with the COVID-19 patients as part of the third wave action plan.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), during the fourth wave of illnesses in May of last year, Delhi created roughly 18.79 tonnes of COVID-related biomedical waste. As the fourth wave subsided, this reduced to 7.6 tonnes per day in June. Next month, it fell to 3.55 tonnes per day. Staffers and resident welfare organisations, on the other hand, have expressed worries about the safety of frontline employees collecting biomedical waste from homes where the COVID-19 patients are isolated.