India generates over 56K tons of COVID related bio-medical waste in a year

New Delhi: A data collected by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) informed Rajya Sabha on Monday that India has generated 56898.2 tons of COVID bio-medical waste from June 2020 to June 2021.

As per the data, Madhya Pradesh has generated the highest ever 8317 tons of waste during the treatment of Corona patients.

This data was collected through an app -- COVID-19 BWM -- developed by the CPCB to track the generation and disposal of Covid-19 BMW from across the states and Union Territories, Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, said in a statement in the Upper House in reply to a question by Akhilesh Prasad Singh.

Covid-19 BMW is required to be segregated as per Schedule-I of Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016.

Thereafter, the collected BMW is required to be handed over to the Common Bio-medical Waste Treatment Facility (CBWTF) operator for final treatment and disposal. The CPCB has issued guidelines for 'Handling, Treatment and Disposal of Waste Generated during Treatment/Diagnosis/Quarantine of COVID-19 Patients' under the provisions of BMWM Rules, 2016.

As per the guidelines, healthcare facilities are required to segregate the BMW at source and hand over such segregated waste to the common bio-medical waste treatment facility operators for treatment and disposal.

Similarly, the waste generated from quarantine camps/ home quarantine/ home isolation is treated as 'domestic hazardous waste' as defined under Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 for collection by Urban Local Bodies, and thereafter, disposed of as per the provisions of rules.

Smaller states and UTs such as Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim do not have CBWTF, the data revealed.

In all, 202 plants have the capacity to process about 1184.8 tonnes BMW per day, it added.