The rise in pollution due to bio medical waste disposal methods in the city was highlighted on World Environment Day by the members of Sambhavna Trust Clinic meant for free treatment of gas victims of Bhopal.
While talking to the media persons here on Sunday, Trusts’ laboratory assistant Anand Kumar Suman said that incineration of biomedical waste is not a solution, but it makes it further severe.
Suman further said that data collected from different nations suggest that due to incineration of bio medical waste a large amount of dioxin and mercury gets into the air. This causes serious health issues like cancer, birth disabilities, affects the immune system and other diseases especially for the people living within one kilometer radius.
The librarian of the trust Shahnaz Ansari said that dioxin is one of the most poisonous chemicals in the world. The mercury that gets released affects brain of the fetus. In the incinerated smoke of the bio medical waste heavy metals like Arsenic, lead, Cadmium, Sulfur Dioxide and Benzene are present that may affect brain, lungs and kidneys and may cause cancer. The Data Manager of Sambhavna Clinic Ajay Patel said that when the waste is burned in the incinerator, 30 per cent of the waste remains in the incinerator itself and some part smoke out into the air. All of it contains poisonous gases and heavy metals, he added. Patel further said that there is no proper way of bio medical waste disposal in Bhopal.
Medical Social Worker of the trust Premchand said that in Sambhavna Trust Clinic the bio medical waste is first sterilized using solar energy and then disposed off as ordinary waste. He further said that this method was invented by Doctor Vikrant Chitnis of Indore. Chitnis was highly appreciated in an international competition for his invention in 2003, he added.