Biomedical waste management is taking a wrong way since years. The ugliest part of this practice is “Contaminating the lives of healthy people with the waste of sick ones”. How long can you bear this idea or the act of crime? Who is really responsible for this? Even the obligation of the hospital becomes sceptical.

As we know biomedical waste is usually generated during the treatment, diagnosis and immunization process. The waste can be either medical or laboratory origin. Some of the highly infectious waste from the hospitals includes intravenous fluid bottles, used cottons, syringes and even parts of human after surgical removal. It is sad to say that India has a very distressing history in managing such wastes and as the time passes the condition is becoming worse.

Some of the main issues in the waste handling part are listed below:

• The segregation process is done in the bad way. This means all types of waste are put together and so the further process becomes complicated.
• Secondly, they are dropped directly to the oceans or landfill areas. As proper segregation is not done, the after effect will be a big concern.
• The medical staff is not aware of this part or would say they are not concerned about what is happening.
• The worst part is that none of the rules released by the government bodies are followed and no strict steps are taken to stop that activity.

The hazards of such a poor waste management are listed below:

• The rate of infection will increase like uncontrollable.
• Again some of cases of repacking of the disposed equipments for reselling have been reported.
• The chances of air and water pollution becomes very much high.

Some of the classification of the hospital waste is listed below:

• Infectious waste
• Sharp waste
• Pharmaceutical
• Chemical and liquid waste
• Pathological waste
• Radioactive waste
• General waste

The suggested category in the disposal is listed below:

Plastic Mutilation

This is the practice of stopping the reuse of plastics or other sharper objects and should be done before the transportation, on-site. Here a special person is assigned to destroy needle and put the needle in a tamper free vessel. The plastic containers, gloves, drains etc. are clipped and packed in a plastic red bag.

Managing the lead and mercury waste

Here, the disposals are managed according to particular rules. After use the items are packed in separate bag and handed over to the authorized vendors. The World Health Organization have special restriction regarding cleaning of mercury wastes, the steps for replacing the vessels that contained mercury etc.

Disposed Medicines

The disposal of the cytotoxic drugs is really critical. It is usually put in a labeled non-chlorinated yellow colored container. These drugs with expired date are returned to the manufactures and they do incineration at a temperature that is higher than 1200 degree Celsius.

Radioactive waste disposals

The disposal of radioactive materials has to be done under the regulations released by the nuclear regulatory agency. A particular radioactive material is managed at an authorized disposal site. The low radioactive material is disposed in the sewer and does not have any particular regulation.

Managing the liquid waste material

The liquid waste after the laboratory, labor room or operation theater use was separated and treated at a separate Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP). The body wastes of the patients like fluid, blood etc. should be pretreated before sending to ETP.

It has been noticed that with the increasing number of the health care facilities, the quantity of waste release has also increased. When we compare the current waste release rate with the past five year’s you can realize the difference. This has become a great hazard to the entire ecosystem. There are some organizations set up for amplifying the idea of biomedical waste management. In reality, nothing is bringing the expected results. Moreover, the control should begin from the manufacturer end and should be amplified at the hospital. The worst part is that some of the hospital management is least bothered about the segregation and disposing the waste according to their convenience. The government must take strict step is controlling such practices and offer resources for implementing the mission of biomedical waste management.