Lack of awareness on COVID-19 waste segregation by those advised home quarantine is posing risk of infection to waste-pickers as well as other citizens. In wake of spike in coronavirus cases in city, the number of home quarantine patients has also increased drastically. There is a guideline by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for disposing of COVID-19 waste for home quarantine patients, but lack of proper awareness among citizens for segregation of such waste creating a threat to everyone. Normally, people hand over waste to the pickers in plastic bags with other household wastes.

 

 

 

At this situation, the chances of transmission of the virus among the waste-pickers is very high. Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has instructed the companies who are responsible for picking garbage from doorsteps to provide masks, hand gloves and other safety equipments to the waste-pickers. However, it was noticed that the person who is picking/collecting garbage from door steps are not using masks or gloves many times. Patients with mild symptoms or no symptoms are being home quarantined for various reasons, including shortage of hospital beds. However, it is seen that many of those under home isolation are unaware that Covid waste is to be treated as biomedical waste and put in a place a separate mechanism to handle such waste. This lack of knowledge may result in such biomedical waste being handled by waste pickers, and along with their contacts, being susceptible to the deadly virus. With no NMC facility available to collect biomedical waste generated by patients in home isolation, the disposing Covid waste in door-to-door garbage collection van is becoming a big threat for all.

 

“Health and sanitation workers in the city are playing a major role in containing COVID-19. If they get infected due to lack of proper mechanism to handle covid waste, the whole system will collapse in near future,” said Anasuya Kale Chhabrani, an environment activist to The Hitavada. The civic body must appoint the firm which is responsible for collection of biomedical waste (BMW) from hospitals for three months to collect door-to-door covid waste in the city, she added. Superb Hygienic Disposal (SHD), the firm engaged in collecting and disposing biomedical waste (BMW) in city, is collecting BMW from 80 dedicated Covid hospitals and also collecting the covid waste or BMW from 632 private hospitals on daily basis. NMC must come forward and create a mechanism for collection of dedicated covid waste from home quarantine localities with the help of SHD.

 

“We have collected 31 metric tonne (MT) biomedical waste in March and in February it was just 17.25 MT. Due to the second strain of coronavirus in the city the quantity of BMW is also increased in March,” said Atul Zoting of SHD to The Hitavada. About 80 per cent of Covid patients in home quarantine are disposing the waste as the domestic ones. The carelessness about disposal of covid waste is also noticed at city crematoriums by citizens who visits there for the funeral of their near and dear ones and throw the waste inside the crematorium premises. No one is taking care of the proper segregation and disposal of such waste in city based crematoriums amid this pandemic situation. “We have installed Covid garbage pits at all crematoriums in the city and also collect it with the help of our special vans every day,” said Zoting.