Medical waste management during COVID-19 situation in India: Perspective towards safe environment

ABSTRACT

The situation in the world of pandemics is rapidly changing, and the COVID-19 has put a lot of pressure on the government and private sector, who are primarily responsible for controlling the situation. COVID-19 positive cases have increased in 2021 relative to 2020, and the number of patients admitted to hospitals has also increased, despite the fact that few of them were denied admission due to shortage of beds. Normal people who experience any symptoms immediately isolate themselves and begin taking the COVID medications prescribed by medical personnel and their team. During these times, all domestic people tossed the wrappers and boxes of medicines into the regular trash can, and the waste was handed over to the waste collector, who treated it like any other domestic waste and disposed of it using open dumping or other methods. The objective of this perspective is to suggest the collection of these types of waste from domestics, and protect the natural resources like water, soil, and even living beings including animals from pollution (from the effect of SARS-CoV-2). One of the developing nation's hospitals (Indian hospitals) generates 136.89 tons of BMWs every day. During a pandemic, a considerable amount of medical waste is generated from households. The main challenge for environmental waste management agencies is determining who is affected by COVID or viruses and which houses generate these types of waste;thus, the proposed strategy of collecting medical waste separately would be beneficial to the long-term sustainability of natural resources and animals.