Discarded PPE And Other Medical Waste Fast Becoming Whole New Environmental Crisis

The coronavirus pandemic has caused a spike in the amount of medical waste adding to the crisis of plastic pollution. Now PPEs and other waste finding its way to the ocean.

New Delhi: Rising COVID-19 cases has set off a global environmental issue as there is a rise in medical waste, including the Personal protective equipment (PPE) that people use and discard.  In Delhi alone, waste plants are working beyond their usual capacity.  According to a PTI report, two common bio-medical waste treatment facilities (CBWTFs) namely, SMS Water Grace BMW Private Limited in Nilothi in West Delhi and Biotic Waste Solutions Private Limited in Jahangirpuri which has an operational capacity of 12 tonnes and 34 tonnes per day, respectively are together disposing of around 19 tonnes of COVID and 16 tonnes on non-COVID bio-medical waste per day. These facilities collect bio-medical waste from government hospitals, quarantine centres, isolation facilities, testing centres, dispensaries, private hospitals, and laboratories. Municipal corporations collect COVID-19 bio-medical waste from houses of patients undergoing home quarantine which then go to the waste-to-energy plants with large incinerators capacities. But these are just the ones that are collected properly as there are stringent rules for medical facilities. But, according to The Indian Express report, a Delhi-based waste management expert Swati Singh Sambyal said that only 70 percent of this waste is going to the incinerators, 30 percent of it is dumped outside the hospital or on the roads. Also, adding to this crisis, is that most homes just discard this biomedical waste in regular bins which then finds its way to landfills and poses a threat to waste pickers, sanitation workers, and garbage collectors. Even if they manage to segregate their waste, household waste is collected by one truck in which everything is dumped together. According to a Tribune India article, Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) data, pointed out that the state generated an average of 2,700 kg of COVID biomedical waste every day in June. A Mint report stated, that from 120 containment zones in Bengaluru  80 tonnes of biomedical waste was generated since the outbreak of COVID-19. Meanwhile, media reports show that waste including PPE has now also made its way to the sea. Masks, gloves and other PPE are floating around in the water adding to the destruction that plastic waste has already done to marine life. A World Economic Forum article says that studies indicate that less than 10% of all plastics have actually been recycled. Single-use plastic accounts for around 49% of plastics found in the ocean. Jai Dhar Gupta, Founder of Nirvana Being, which makes Anti-Pollution & Anti-Viral Masks told the New Indian Express that barring gloves and goggles, every type of PPE is made up of some form of plastic. “And the amount of plastic that is going into our air, water and food (in the form of microplastic) is ginormous. I think this is going to do more harm than COVID itself.”