The Coimbatore Corporation has issued notice to Ganga Hospital here for attempting to dump biomedical waste at its waste management facility in Vellalore.
According to T.K. Ponnusamy, Commissioner, Coimbatore Corporation, the civic body issued the notice on Sunday after the officials on Sunday morning found a bag of biomedical waste in the non-medical waste that was transported from the hospital to the yard. The officials concerned were reportedly tipped off by residents. The waste bag contained used, blood-stained cotton, needles, bags used in blood transmission and gloves. It was a bag weighing just about two kg.
Soon after confirming the presence of biomedical waste, the officials informed him, Mr. Ponnusamy said and added that he had ordered issue of notice to the hospital, Corporation’s sanitary supervisor of the ward concerned, workers and also the Coimbatore Integrated Waste Management Company. The latter was served a notice for allowing the waste-laden lorry on Sunday into the solid waste management facility.
He said that the civic body had issued the notice under the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2000. If found guilty, a fine will be imposed on the hospital, as determined by the Coimbatore Corporation, officials said.
Deputy Commissioner S. Sivarasu said that the Corporation recently came across a similar incident, where another city hospital had mixed biomedical waste with the waste from a nearby wedding hall. It was warned and let off because the waste contained only cotton. He said that in the Sunday’s incident, the Corporation sent the lorry to the company that was authorised for incinerating medical waste from hospitals in the city.
Sources said that hospitals could resort to such dumping of medical waste to bring down the cost they paid to the company that incinerated medical waste. The hospitals paid charges based on the weight of biomedical waste generated.
On September 28, there was a similar attempt to dump biomedical waste at the Vellalore yard.
The Corporation officials not only thwarted the attempt but also preferred a complaint with the Podanur police, who arrested two lorry drivers. The drivers were found carrying half-a-tonne each of biomedical waste in cement bags.
In this instance too, it was the residents who alerted the Corporation officials, who said that the waste could have originated from waste recycling units near Ukkadam.
