Cities need to manage COVID waste smartly

Waste management has become one of the biggest challenges that the world is yet to conquer collectively. While some countries have adopted smart waste management solutions, others struggle to handle the garbage piles lining big cities worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has only added to this chaos and made it tougher to handle.

Government of India, under the Environment Protection Act 1986, enacted various waste management rules in 2016. Since then, local governments across the country have been trying to find ways of incorporating smart waste management solutions in their waste management processes. In addition to this, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has also, in a way, focused greatly on waste management and disposal. However, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that one type of waste would become a bigger problem for authorities than others – domestic bio-medical waste.
As scientists suggested using masks and gloves wherever possible to stay safe from COVID-19 infection, the markets flooded with various types of face masks and plastic gloves. These masks, which were initially majorly made of plastic, started being used on a large scale by the general public. This meant that the amount of plastic waste coming from domestic sources increased manifold. Since the coronavirus is highly transmissible, the disposed masks and gloves fell under the ‘domestic bio-medical waste’ category. Therefore, their segregation and disposal were to be taken up separately by municipal authorities and local governments.
Additionally, our frontline workers comprising doctors, policemen, sanitation workers etc., also used personal protective equipment (PPE) kits on a large scale for their own and the patients’ safety. These PPE kits, made up of polypropylene – a type of plastic, were for one-time use only and therefore were changed every day. This, in turn, further added to the excessive amounts of plastic waste that was being generated, particularly during the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown. According to a recent report by the Central Pollution Control Board, India generated 33,000 tonnes of COVID-19 biomedical waste in the past seven months. With the sudden increase in plastic waste, various local governments found segregation of domestic bio-medical waste difficult. Thus, this waste was disposed with the rest of the waste and often led to the spread of infection among sanitation workers and those involved in waste disposal.
So far, most urban local bodies (ULBs) in India use incineration to dispose of plastic waste. Since most incinerators are not maintained well, they end up polluting the environment by releasing harmful gasses, thereby adding to air pollution in many cities.

Action by ULBs

As soon as the ULBs had the opportunity to attend to the issue of waste management, local bodies like the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation introduced initiatives of segregating COVID-19 waste at the source by adding separate compartments/bins in their garbage collections vehicles. This immensely helped the residents in disposing off COVID waste responsibly. They also engaged in spreading awareness about the importance of handling COVID waste responsibly.
With the Drug Controller General of India granting emergency use authorisation to two COVID-19 vaccine candidates – Covaxin and Covishield, state and local governments across the country have sprung into action to prepare for the world’s largest vaccination drive. While many cities have already collected large quantities of needles, syringes, and blood bags in preparation for the vaccination drive, not many have a strict waste management plan in place. Here, authorities must learn from the past and quickly work on putting in place a waste tracking procedure so that COVID-19 related equipment can be tracked from their procurement to their disposal, thus ensuring safe waste management and minimising further spread of the virus.