HOW TO DISPOSE IT OF?
STORAGE AND TRANSPORTATION
Use separate containers to store different types of waste to ensure that they don’t get mixed up
If there is a waste management facility in the hospital, transport the waste wearing gloves or in separate bags to municipal body's dumper truck
This time, the waste was found behind a hospital, but the officials still need photographic or videographic proof of it,” said Shringarpure.
The waste is also putting the clean-up volunteers at risk as they are unaware of the safety guidelines or disposal norms. “Every healthcare provider has a Collection and segregation
The waste has been put in eight categories, each of which needs to be segregated and disposed of separately:
process of discarding and crushing the needles. Uncrushed needles indicate the waste hasn’t gone through the safe disposal channel of sterilisation,” said infectious diseases expert Dr Om Srivastava. “Apart from infections such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV that spread through the prick of a used needle, other bacterial infections namely staphylococcus (can cause food poisoning resulting in nausea, vomiting and stomachache) and streptococcal (sore throat, fever, swollen lymph nodes, rash, low blood pressure, and tissue destruction and number of other infections) spread because of the body fluids present on the biomedical
waste. It is risky for those who come in close contact.”
MPCB officials are clueless. “It is a challenging task to find who is dumping the waste as there is a possibility that it may have been dumped at a different site and later washed ashore. We are probing it,” said Dr G Sangewar, regional officer, MPCB.