Fear of infection haunts waste collection staff in Amritsar

As contagious biomedical waste is being generated at hospitals and quarantine centres where coronavirus patients are being treated, fear of getting infected is haunting the biomedical waste collection employees in Amritsar.

“We are scared of going to Guru Nanak Dev hospital (GNDH), Amritsar, where six corona positive patients are being treated. Gloves, masks, incubating tubes, personal protection equipment, cotton wool and syringes make over 40kg of the Covid-19 medical waste,” said Avtar Singh, 28, an employee of the Amritsar Enviro Care Systems Pvt Ltd, a biomedical waste management company, which collects waste from city hospitals and disposes it.

“The medical waste is segregated into different coloured bags. I fear collecting the ‘yellow’ bags with ‘Covid-19’ mark on them,” said Lovepreet Singh, 27, another employee of the firm.

“Everyone is a little worried. Over 70 sanitation workers were provided proper safety equipment. PPEs are provided to all the employees as per the guidelines laid down by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for Covid-19 waste. We sanitize our vehicles daily with D-125. We are also providing adequate sanitisers to all workers daily,” said Dr Inderpal singh Pasricha, managing director of the biomedical waste collection firm.

“We collect over 40kg Covid-19 waste from GNDH daily and dispose it at 1,200°C. Amid lockdown, we have witnessed 40% dip in total medical waste collected from GNDH,” he added.

On an average, over 200kg biomedical waste is collected from the hospital every month.