A Tonne Bio-Waste Is Produced In Telangana Daily

The novel virus Coronavirus is just not leaving the country instead the positive cases are increasing rapidly making the Government worried. Although the lockdown period is continuing, the positive cases in the states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are growing in thousands making the total Coronavirus cases in Indian reach above 1,25,000 mark.

One more important thing which people should be aware of is the bio-medical waste. Yes!!! This waste generated by the Coronavirus patients should be disposed of in a proper way to stop the virus from getting spread. The waste generated from the Coronavirus wards like syringes, masks, gloves, clothes, cotton, personal protective equipment kits, medicine covers, etc., include the bio-medical waste list.

According to the sources, almost 1-tonne waste materials are gathered from 12 different Government hospitals, 7 sample collecting centres, 10 labs and 128 quarantine centres in the Telangana state. After gathering all the bio-medical waste, it is segregated and incinerated. Then all the waste is sent to the 11 common bio-medical waste degradable centres to make it disposed of. Although it is a challenge to handle this task, our municipal department is doing a great job by disposing of it in the right manner.

Going with the reports, almost 60-tonnes of bio-medical waste has been generated from the entire state in between 29th March to 25th May 2020. As we all know, Gandhi Hospital is the main one in the Hyderabad city in treating the Covid-19 patients, it has alone generated 30-tonnes of bio-medical waste.

Following the specific guidelines released by the Pollution Control Board, all the municipal workers are segregating the bio-medical waste and collecting them in a double-layered bags with mandatory labelling process.

As the disposal of bio-medical waste in only available in Medak, Sanga Reddy, Siddipet, Nizamabad, Wanaparthy, Karimnagar, Khammam, Warangal and Yadadri districts, all the waste is transferred from various places to these disposable units carefully through 55 special vehicles.

It is carried in special sanitized vehicles without mixing the waste with normal house-hold ones. All the bio-medical waste is being burnt and then turned into ashes. This way the ashes are transferred to Dundigal Hazardous Waste Management centre, where they are going to be incinerated. Specially appointed 200+ municipal employees are trained for this special task.