Challenges and actions to the environmental management of Bio-Medical Waste during COVID-19 pandemic in India

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 has engendered a global health crisis along with diverse impacts on economy, society and environment. Efforts to combat this pandemic have also significantly shot-up the quantity of Bio-medical Waste (BMW) generation. Safe disposal of large quantity of BMW has been gradually posing a major challenge. BMW management is mostly implemented at municipal level following regulatory guidelines defined by respective states and the Union. This article is a narrative of the status of BMW generation, management and regulation in India in the context of COVID-19 crisis. The article is based on comparative analysis of data on BMW generation and management from authentic sources, a systematic literature review and review of news reports. In the current pandemic situation where media has been playing a significant role in highlighting all the concerns related to COVID-19 spread and management. Assessing the ground situation regarding effectiveness of prevailing BMW management facilities, requirement and suggestions can provide insights to the subject with policy implications for India and countries as well. The discussion has been built on different dimensions of BMW management during the pandemic including existing infrastructures, capacity utilisation, policy guidelines, operational practices and waste-handlers aspects. The results on state-wise analysis of reported BMW quantity and active COVID-19 patients also reveal some non-linear relationship between the two variables. Delhi, the National Capital is situated at a better position in terms of BMW management as compared to other studied states. The findings are expected to provide valuable insights to the policy makers and other relevant authorities to evaluate adequateness as well as efficiency quotients of entire BMW management landscape. Some of the critical observations of this article are also expected to offer impetus for enhancing national disaster preparedness in future.

Assessment of Knowledge, Practice and Attitude about Biomedical Waste Management among Healthcare Professionals during COVID-19 Crises in Al-Ahsa

“…Biomedical waste (BMW) is healthcare wastes or hospital wastes generated from biological and medical activities, such as from the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of diseases [ 1 ]. BMW must be managed by a safe and proper method, which should be known and practiced by every healthcare professional (HCP) to reduce the transmission of infection and to prevent various health and environmental hazards [ 2 ].…”

Elucidating the role of environmental management of forests, air quality, solid waste and wastewater on the dissemination of SARS-CoV-2

“…Only just over half of the countries in the world have any form of legislation in place regarding healthcare waste management and only about a quarter have dedicated laws ( Oruonye and Ahmed, 2020 ; UNEP, 2020a; Adelodun et al, 2021 ; Chand et al, 2021 ; Falih et al, 2021 ). Waste management systems are designed for steady state flow with low variations generally, particularly in low-middle income countries waste sector is largely ignored and untreated as an essential service due to political and economic constraints ( Acharya et al, 2021 ; Faisal et al, 2021 ; Goswami et al, 2021 ). Due to the dramatic surge in solid waste quantities that may lead to high infectivity, priority must be given to the aspects of linking bio-disasters with disaster waste management planning which currently focus mainly on debris management ( Sharma et al, 2020 ).…”

Organizational and legal mechanism of bio-medical emergencies management

“…Emergencies are classified according to the occurrence type, the spreading scale, the level of human loss, and financial losses (Gunnarsson & Stomberg, 2009;Wang et al, 2017). Unfortunately, bio-medical emergencies occupy a significant place among the dangers threatening humanity (Ilyas et al, 2020;Goswami et al, 2021).…”