Hospital waste dumped in the open

PUDUCHERRY: Despite the government putting in place a system for their safe disposal, black plastic bags containing hospital or biomedical waste were found dumped near a municipal dustbin on Muthumariamman Koil Street. Residents claim that last week similar black bags containing biomedical waste were dumped and rag pickers, who opened it, just took plastic materials and left behind syringes, blood stained cottons and other materials on the site. They expressed fear that disposal of biomedical waste in the public garbage bins would expose them to health hazards.The government has worked out a system for disposal of biomedical waste and has entrusted it to a private facilitator Clean Away, which has set up its facility at Thuthipet. The facilitator would provide the facility to both private and government hospitals for a fee fixed by the Department of Science, Technology and Environment. However, only 17 hospitals have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the facilitator since June 15 when the facility was inaugurated. The remaining 40 hospitals are yet to comply.Till now the biomedical wastes were dumped in municipal dustbin, but ever since the facility was created, the government wants strict compliance in disposal as per the biomedical disposal rules. The Chief Secretary had also directed the Pondicherry Pollution Control Committee to issue show cause notice to any hospital violating the biomedical disposal rules during the meeting on June 22.