Nobody talks about household medical waste

KOCHI: Almost 90% of the biomedical waste in Kerala is processed at Indian Medical Association’s (IMA) treatment facility in Palakkad. Kerala is the only state, other than two Union territories, where medical waste treatment is handled at one place. Neighbouring states, including Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, have nearly 18-25 biomedical treatment plants.

But, there is not much accountability when it comes to the domestic medical waste that is generated in each home. Nobody is talking about it as a threat. Sanitary pads, adult diapers, dressing bandages, plaster casts, material contaminated with blood, catheters and urine bags are all used at homes and disposed in water bodies, rivers, drains without treating it first. Sometimes such waste is burnt and even dumped in pits, abandoned wells or mixed with the local body’s solid waste. Those who collect it just dump it at a site without following disposal protocol.

“We are a professional organization that treats biomedical waste from hospitals at our Palakkad facility. However, we can’t expand further there. So the possibility of treating residential medical waste should be through parallel facilities in each district or every alterative district. If biowaste is not treated and released in sources like water, it can return with more problems,” said secretary of IMAGE Dr Sharafuddeen KP.

The operational costs of transporting this waste is high and hence IMA has been pressing for smaller facilities in districts. “In Kochi, we want to use three acres in Brahmapuram to treat the domestic medical waste. We are helping a private group to set up another facility on a six-acre plot in the outskirts,” he added.

Perinthalmanna municipality is the only local body that has streamlined its entire solid waste management, including biomedical waste. “We have been running it successfully for the past six months. There are collection kiosks and a vehicle goes around the area twice in a month,” said municipality chairman Mohammed Salim.

The local body has handed over the entire solid waste management to a private operator, Ecokey India Pvt Ltd, which operates the solid waste treatment plant and collects the biomedical waste and hands it over to IMAGE.

“We take a collection charge for operating costs. Almost six tonnes have been collected in this period. There are collection kiosks where people can bring their segregated medical waste in red and yellow bags which have been supplied to them. Around 1,200 families are using this service,” said managing director of Ecokey Jayan P Madathil.

Meanwhile, pollution control board (PCB) officials said that the issue had come up during discussions and no solution was found.

“We are looking at ways to resolve the issue as this is a huge problem that pops up in every household. In Kochi, we are looking at two facilities. Once, finer details are chalked out, we will discuss the same with CREDAI as it expressed interest in helping us with collection from flats and apartments,” said PCB chief K Sajeevan.