Hospital waste recycling

The Lahore city administration has moved against recycling of hospital waste, also known as bio-hazardous and infectious waste. The action against those involved in recycling of the highly dangerous practice started the other day, and raids are being conducted on factories engaged in recycling of the hazardous waste. The step is commendable. The need for such campaign was being long felt. During a raid on a factory, the raiding party found stocks of hospital waste being recycled for manufacturing baby plastic feeders, nipples, utensils, shopping bags and other such items. According to reports, so far five such factories have been raided and large amounts of hospital waste have been recovered. The seized hazardous waste has been shifted to a hospital for incineration. At some factories raiding parties faced resistance.

Since hospital waste is highly dangerous for human, animals and birds, these bio-hazardous waste materials are incinerated to protect living beings and the environment. Across the world every year, more than two million tonnes of hospital waste are generated. Given governmental apathy, corruption and lack of awareness about the hazardous nature of hospital waste in Third World countries, the possibility of unscrupulous elements recycling the hazardous waste into usable items cannot be ruled out. Some hospital waste contains heavy metals which are very harmful to health. This and all hospital waste pose serious hazard to health, so they all are to be incinerated and even the residue left after incineration is to be buried in landfills to protect human health and the environment. Now there is no economical way to recycle hospital waste. The existing process is not worth the effort and the cost involved. The best way is incineration. We hope other provinces will follow suit and launch drives against recycling of hospital waste. So far we have heard nothing either about recycling of the dangerous waste and action against this practice from other provinces. 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2019.

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