Surat tackles Covid waste best: Study

SURAT: Diamond City is sweeping clean all cleanliness records. This time, after donning the crown of being the second cleanest city in the country, Surat has emerged as a model centre for handling biomedical waste during the pandemic.
An Indo-Norwegian study of the global pandemic’s implications on the informal sector and biomedical and plastic waste generation and handling, conducted between March and July 2020, finds that Surat tackled it in a model manner, practices good enough to be emulated elsewhere too.
The findings of the report was released during a webinar on “The Informal Sector, plastic and biomedical waste-perspectives and trends during COVID19” organised by the Indo-Norwegian project team where experts discussed impact of waste management on ecosystem.
Supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in New Delhi, the study was jointly conducted by an Indo-Norwegian project team (INOPOL) from Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Mu Gamma Consultants Pvt Ltd (MGC) and Toxics Link.
“Since the very beginning of the pandemic we have implemented best practices in handling biomedical wastes in Covid-19 times. We anticipated that such waste would increase and accordingly planned our strategy helping us to emerge as a model,” municipal commissioner Banchhanidhi Pani told TOI.
“We have ensured that waste generated by the mobile Dhanvantari Raths – engaged in Covid-19 tests – were collected from the location and it reached the urban health centres from where processing agencies collected it for further scientific disposal,” Pani added.
The civic body chief admitted that despite initial hiccups when private hospitals also started treating Covid-19 had pricing problems, the civic body could successfully overcome all of these issues.
The study highlighted the impact of the pandemic on formal and informal plastic waste value chains which also affected Surat, though not very pronounced. Health risks from exposure to contaminated biomedical waste of inadequately equipped frontline informal workers was another key concern.
Speaking at the webinar, chief of Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Environment Program, Dr Muralee Thummarukudy said, “The biomedical waste produced per infected patient on an average is about 3kg daily, while the burden of managing the hazardous waste is borne by the informal sector and more so by waste pickers from marginalised communities. The findings of the study released today is in line with the global findings and recommendations.”