Covid-19: Used PPEs found lying on roads in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: There is a growing number of instances of personal protective equipment being found dumped near hospital dustbins and in areas in and around the Isha crematorium at Nanjundapuram in Coimbatore.
The government has made it clear that PPE kits worn by health workers should be treated as biowaste. They should be collected with other Covid-19 waste and handed over separately to biowaste incinerators and disposed of immediately as top priority.
Individuals using PPEs must dig a pit, burn the kits in the pit and close it off with mud. This is to ensure that random people or animals will not touch the kits or come in close contact with it by any chance.
On Saturday, TOI saw at least two PPEs dumped in a corporation dustbin on the Puliakulam Road. The following day, a PPE kit was found in the same dustbin. During the weekend, regular commuters in Nanjundapuram saw PPE kits lying on the roadside hardly a few feet from the crematorium.
“Many corporation workers or panchayat workers dump their PPEs here,” said a regular commuter on the road, Harish Ramaswamy. “We fear we will soon start seeing gloves, masks and other biomedical waste too on the road,” he said.