Only designated staff to pick biomedical waste from quarantined homes; pollution control board issues new guidelines

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has issued new guidelines to local urban bodies on ways to handle, treat, and dispose off the biomedical waste generated during the treatment, diagnostics and quarantine of COVID-19 patients. It has mandated that only qualified personnel should pick up garbage from quarantined homes. Currently, much of the garbage today is being collected by the waste pickers without much precaution. In many areas, they don’t even use gloves and masks. Only after some residents pointed out this anomaly did a few garbage supervisors provide the garbage collectors with gloves and masks.

As this comes under biomedical waste, the BBMP has to ensure the safe collection and disposal of garbage generated from quarantine camps and homes. Common Biomedical Waste Treatment & Disposal Facilities are to be treated as essential services, and the persons taking care of quarantined homes and facilities are asked to deposit biomedical waste from suspected or recovered COVID-19 patients in yellow bags before handing them to the BBMP garbage contractors.

The collectors should be adequately trained and provided with appropriate safety equipment, including three layer masks, splash proof aprons/gowns, nitrile gloves, gum boots and safety goggles. Their vehicles should be sanitized with sodium hypochlorite or any appropriate chemical disinfectant after every trip.

The board is asking all municipal corporations to create separate teams of workers for the door step waste collection at waste deposition centres, quarantine homes and home care. “Ensure that only designated staff collects biomedical waste from quarantine homes or home care,” says one of the rules. According to CPCB, this waste would be treated as ‘domestic hazardous waste’ as defined under Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, and disposed off according to the provisions of Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016.