The growing popularity of self-test COVID-19 kits is proving to be a problem for civic workers collecting dry waste from households as well as those who segregate them at Dry Waste Collection Centres (DWCCs) in Bengaluru.
There has been a rise in discarded masks during the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, home test kits are also found mixed with household waste instead of being set aside as bio-medical waste.
Kumudha, who works at a waste collecting centre in J.P. Nagar, posted a video saying: “Women working in our centres are afraid to segregate waste, and many of them have fallen sick.”
She suggested that pharmacies selling self-test kits inform customers that they should discard them separately as bio-medical waste.
