Page 11 - Plastics News April 2020

Recommendations to States Environment Secretaries, State Chief Secretaries, State Health Secretaries,
Cabinet Secretaries, CPCB, MoEF & CC, DCPC and MoHFW regarding Handling, Treatment and
Disposal of Plastic Waste generated during Covid-19 crisis
At the outset we would like to take this opportunity to recommend the following:
appreciate commendable efforts being put by the
(1) Time bound disposal of the waste with tightly
authorities to contain the Covid-19 from spreading
further. As you are aware, the plastic products in terms controlled storage facilities that are periodically
of PPE's and other disposables are in the fore front of the disinfected.
war, protecting our front line Health care warriors, Law (2) Authorities should oversee the operational and
and order personals, municipal staff and other human financial obligations of certified waste disposal
resources engaged in duty. The current pandemic of the entities for smooth functioning in view of health
novel coronavirus, COVID-19, brings challenges due to emergency faced by the nation.
highly contagious nature with regards to handling and
disposal of biomedical and municipal solid waste (3) Teams of human resources be trained and
generated to mitigate threat of further aggravation of appropriately equipped to undertake the task at
the situation by becoming source of infection. hand in a safe manner.
It is expected that a larger than normal amount of waste (4) Real time data of waste generation and disposal
will be generated from Healthcare facilities, quarantine should be monitored to ensure that none of the
camps, Households acting as quarantine/isolationfor infectious waste is left out undisposed. The
suspected/infected persons, post consumption reports to be filed on a daily basis by both
protective gears used by activeduty personnel's and healthcare facilities and waste collection Notified
large consumption of protection waste like masks and vendors.
hand gloves used by the society.
(5) Urban Local Bodies should chart out an action plan
In this regards, we suggest that Central Pollution Control along with municipalities/ward councilors and
Board guidelines (regarding Handling, Treatment and collate data for their respective ward comprising
Disposal of waste generated during Treatment/ of places where people are quarantined such as
Diagnosis and Quarantine of COVID-19 patients, Ref. No. homes/religious institutions and other such hot
th
F.No. B-31011/BMW(94)/2020/WM-Idated 18 March spots. Requirements of face masks and other PPE's
2020) should be strictly adhered to for all categories as for workers engaged in waste management,
mentioned above including the protection ware used by garbage collection bags (for Biomedical waste and
civil society which should be also included under the Infectious solid waste), vehicle and drums to
above notification and the civil society be mandated to collect Biomedical waste should be planned well
segregate that waste prior to handing it over to the in advance and communicated to the Municipal
qualified waste collectors in order to deal with the Commissioner/local authorities to make them
serious threat of infection emanating from such type of available in timely manner.
active biomedical waste.
To ensure streamlined disposal, it is crucial that the
This we believe would contain the risk of community Urban Local Bodies and Private waste management
spreading. The civil society should be made aware of this companies should be connected to the Biomedical waste
requirement so as to facilitate collection of such treatment facilities at the state and district level.
segregated waste and avoid any unscrupulous reuse that To deal with the current situation, there is a need to
can enhance the risk.
prepare infrastructure and operation modalities for
We are of the opinion that it is crucial to handle normal fastest disposal and aggressive disinfestation during
Biomedical and Infectious solid waste separately theholding period.
because mixing of such waste can exceptionally increase The above is for your kind consideration with the
the volumes and compromise existing Biomedical Waste objective of dealing with critical situation in the best
treatment infrastructure.
interest of public health and society of our great Nation.
Based on best practices employed by other countries In this regards, we suggest
who have been affected by the pandemic, we would

APRIL 2020 8 Plastics News