Coronavirus Pune: PMC disposes off COVID-19 biowaste scientifically

Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is disposing off 1,500 kg of biowaste daily in a scientific manner at a plant near Kailash Crematorium near the Naidu Hospital. The waste has increased due to the COVID-19 outbreak as well as the door-to-door collection.

Usually, PMC collects biowaste from hospitals daily. Now, it has instructed patients to home quarantine. Therefore, waste has increased on both fronts from home quarantined patients and hospitals.

The quantity has almost doubled from around 800 kg per day. At present, PMC collects 1,200 kg biowaste from hospitals and 300 kg from home quarantined patients.

PMC Assistant Medical Officer Dr Manisha Naik said, "We have assigned officials to coordinate the collection of biowaste in the 15 ward offices. Swachh workers collect and segregate biowaste from home quarantined patients. Every ward office has one vehicle to collect biowaste."

"Hospital bio-waste is disposed off at the special plant located in Kailash crematorium, which is run by a private contractor. For disposing off home quarantine biowaste, we use PMC incinerator."

Biowaste includes masks, hand gloves, PPE kits, medicines waste, saline bottles, cotton, etc. PMC collected COVID-19 waste in yellow bags and designated a special place to keep it so that its vehicles can collect these bags after every two hours. PMC cleans the place where the bags are kept by spraying sodium hypochlorite.

Normally, PMC collects biowaste once daily. But due to Covid-19, biowaste generation has increased, and according to the government norms, it should be collected at regular intervals and disposed off scientifically to avoid infections. The civic body provides PPE kits to biowaste pickers, vehicles drivers and plant staff.

Meanwhile, due to the lockdown, garbage generation has gone down by more than 500 tonnes. Normally, the city generates 2,100 tonnes of garbage daily. Now, around 1,500-1,600 tonnes is collected per day.