The Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change has released new guidelines for handling bio-medical waste in India. The new rules has made bar code system mandatory for proper control along with easy categorisation and authorisation. There is also provision for pre-treatment of lab waste, blood samples, etc. At present, BMW generation is estimated at 1-2kg per bed per day in a hospital and 600gm per day per bed in a clinic. Out of this, 85% of the hospital waste is non-hazardous and 15% is infectious/hazardous. But with improper disposal resulting in mixed waste, the volume of hazardous waste increases. Further it also increases risk of infection; encourages recycling of prohibited disposables and disposed drugs; and develops resistant microorganisms.
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