Visakhapatnam Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) has expressed serious concern over indiscriminate dumping of material used by Covid-19 positive patients under home isolation/quarantine and issued an order that they must handover the domestic hazardous waste generated by them in a separate yellow bag to the municipalities and gram panchayats concerned.

The municipalities and panchayats have been told to handover them to the nearest Common Bio-medical Waste Treatment Facilities (CBMWTFs) for disposal as bio-medical waste.

APPCB Chairman and retired IAS officer A.K. Parida told Bizz Buzz on Sunday after issuing the order that scientific disposal of bio-medical waste (BMW) of the Covid-19 patients had become a big challenge for the authorities. There are 594 Covid-19 notified hospitals in the State generating about 38 MTs of bio-medical waste.

The State has 12 common bio medical waste treatment and disposal facilities connected to 594 Covid-19 notified hospitals for collection and scientific disposal of the Covid-19 medical waste. APPCB is closely monitoring the collection, transportation and treatment of the Covid-19 medical waste for which a mobile app has been developed and it is mandatory for the Covid-19 hospitals to register, update the generation/segregation details of the medical waste through the app and transportation to the CBMWTF is also being tracked through GPS.

The APPCB order stated that Continuous Ambient Air Quality (CAAQ) monitoring is also being done at the CBMWTFs to ensure that the emission standards are within the permissible limits. APPCB has now made it mandatory for all the hospitals/dispensaries, quarantine centres and testing laboratories in the State dealing with diagnostics and treatment of Covid-19 suspected/confirmed patients to register themselves and use the mobile app while handing the medical waste with proper segregation and transportation to the CBMWTFs for treatment.

APPCB has prescribed detailed guidelines for handling, treatment and disposal of Covid-19 waste at health care facilities, quarantine camps, quarantine homes, home care, sample collection centres and laboratories. Only the used masks, gloves and tissues or swabs contaminated with blood/body fluids of Covid-19 patients including syringes, medicines etc if any generated should be treated as bio-medical waste and the same is to be collected in a separate yellow bag. Masks and gloves used by persons other than Covid-19 patients should be kept in a paper bag for a minimum of 72 hours prior to disposal of the same as general waste after cutting the same to prevent reuse.