Biomedical wastes creating health, environment hazards

Biomedical wastes, including the PPE-related ones, are posing a serious threat to the public health and environment during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as such wastes generated outside hospitals and clinics remain out of management across the country, reports UNB.
Even, there is no proper management for biomedical wastes generated in healthcare establishments in some major cities since well-equipped medical waste management plants are only there in Dhaka, Sylhet, Rangpur and Rajshahi and a small plant in Jashore.
Now the Covid-related wastes are generated largely outside healthcare establishments due to the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), including face-masks, gloves and sanitiser containers, but these mostly remain untreated.
However, the generation of biomedical wastes in the healthcare establishments declined following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic as many non-Covid patients refrained from availing of the services from there, according to insiders.
The experts stressed the need for proper management of the healthcare wastes generated both inside and outside the healthcare establishments for the sake of the public health and environment.
In the capital, PRISM Bangladesh Foundation has been treating the medical wastes since 2006 following an agreement signed with the then Dhaka City Corporation.
But medical wastes created outside the healthcare establishments remain out of its collection chain.
Now PRISM continues to remain in the medical waste management following agreements signed with Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC). The agreements are renewed after every six years.
"We collect the biomedical wastes from some 950 healthcare establishments like hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres, to treat these at the 'Medical Waste Management Plant in Matuail landfill site," said Mazharul Islam, coordinator, Medical Waste Management Programme, PRISM Bangladesh.
Now PRISM collects over six tonnes of wastes from the capital's healthcare establishments a day, which was some 10-11 tonnes during pre-Covid-19 period, he said, adding that the collection of medical wastes is on the rise again.
"The PPE-related wastes are mostly generated outside hospitals and clinics. So, the wastes do not come in our collection chain," he told the news agency.
Following the outbreak of the Covid-19, the DNCC authorities asked the city dwellers to store their used PPEs in polybags to manage these through PRISM.