Tackling BMW a tough order

LUCKNOW: Biomedical waste (BMW) has remained an unanswerable problem for government and the medical organisations — now the problem is delicately balanced on the brink of disaster. The waste generated from a hospital could contain anything ranging from general wastes, pathological wastes, infectious wastes, sharp objects, chemical wastes and radio active wastes.
This lethal combination has the potential to cause any number of diseases and even trigger of an epidemic. Dr Ram Boojh, scientist-in-charge, Centre for Environmental Education presents some statistics. There are approximately 240 health care establishments, including major and medium levels, in the state capital. About six hospitals in the city have a capacity of more than 500 beds and 17 hospitals have a capacity of more than 200 beds. To tackle all the biomedical waste from these hospitals, the city only has about three double chamber and five single chamber incinerators.
But, can incinerators prove to be the answer for the threat posed by biomedical waste?
"To do away with the problem of BMW too much of emphasis is laid on incinerators. With the Supreme Court’s order a few more crop up in the state, but no one checks the functioning and the emission norms of these incinerators," says Dr Shyamala Mani, national coordinator for waste management, CEE.
An incinerator has to be preheated to 800 degree centigrade before waste can be fed into it, explains Dr Mani. But usually the waste is put into the incinerators even before they reach 300 degree centigrade mark, she says.
As a result, the incinerators only add to the air pollution and sometimes harmful chemicals and gases are present in the smoke emitted from them. "There is very little segregation at the source when it comes to the waste, and the waste is usually mixed and not separated which can be dangerous if fed into the incinerator together," says Dr Mani. She also claims that the required minimum 1000 degree C temperature that must be maintained in the secondary chamber of an incinerator is never reached due to which high level of hydrochloric acid, sodium dioxide and nitrogen dioxide is present is the smoke emitted from them."