The Coimbatore Corporation has urged the residents of the city to handover used masks separately or along with sanitary waste to conservancy workers and use eco-friendly cloth masks instead of disposable ones.
In a release, Corporation Commissioner Sravan Kumar Jatavath said that in continuation of the efforts the civic body had been taking to contain the spread of COVID-19, it had initiated the process of collecting used masks along with other sanitary waste and handing it over to an authorised biomedical waste handling company.
As an extension of the steps, the Corporation has urged the public to hand over used mask separately to conservancy workers, who would then carry those to Vellalore to be handed over to the company.
Sources said the civic body separately collected the mask and personal protection equipment from its medical officers and health wing officials and handed it over to the company for safe disposal.
The Corporation also urged the public to prefer reusable cloth mask to disposable mask as that would reduce the quantity of mask in waste and make it easier for the workers to handle it. The Corporation had been following such a safe practise ever since the lockdown was in place. The sources further said that only those in the health care profession needed triple layered or N95 or other such mask and the public can use cloth mask.
