How to get Pollution Board Certificate for Bio-Medical Waste Management?

Introduction

The Waste management is the process of handling waste materials from the time they are created until they are disposed off. The Businesses & Companies need to strategize about how they collect, transport, process, recycle or dispose off the waste generated during any manufacturing process or the domestic waste generated in a commercial activity. With the increase in population, the amount of waste is increasing exponentially and if not handled well, it could result in extra contamination, openings in ozone layers and spread of new ailments and diseases. 

The Bio-medical waste (BMW) refers to any waste produced during diagnosing, treating, or immunizing human or animal research activities or in producing or testing biological or in health camps. Generally, these are the wastes generated in hospitals, health care centers, clinics etc. Biomedical waste management is concerned with characterization, quantification, segregation, storage, transport, and treatment of BMW.
The basic principle of BMW is concerned with 3 Rs, i.e., Reduction, Recycling, and Reuse. The best BMW methods endeavor towards generating lesser possible waste or recovering highest possible waste, rather than disposal.
For the successful operation of a biomedical waste disposal business, it is necessary to satisfy the local rules and regulations for ensuring its uninterrupted operation. Therefore, it is important to follow bio-medical waste facility regulations in areas like treatment, storage, transportation, labeling, and packaging.

Classification of Biomedical Wastes

BMWs can be classified into-
a)    Non-hazardous Wastes: Approximately 75% to 90 % of biomedical wastes are non-risky in nature and have characteristics like domestic wastes. This waste is generated mainly from the organization and maintenance of hospital and health care centers.
b)    Hazardous Wastes: Remaining 10 – 25% of biomedical waste comes under this category and contains about 15% - 18 % infectious characteristics and 5% - 7% toxicity characteristics. The various hazardous wastes include- infectious wastes, pathological wastes, pharmaceutical wastes, genotoxic wastes, chemical wastes, high metallic wastes and radioactive wastes.

Sources of Bio-medical wastes

Hospitals
Clinics
Medical laboratories
Nursing Homes
Blood banks
Morgues
Medical research & training centers
Biotechnology institution/production units
Animal husbandries
Wastes generated at home due to providing medical treatment at home
 

Steps Involved for BMW management

Proper BMW management is highly imperative because of its multiple risk inducing factors related to human health and surrounding ecosystem leading to the ecological hazard, professional hazard, and public hazard.
Following are the steps involved in effective BMW management:

a)    Segregation and Collection

Like all other forms of waste, the best practices for BMW management starts from their point of production. For waste collection, the collector needs to familiarize with what to collect exactly, because each category of medical waste requires segregation from the other types. Practically, this is done by using the right color-coded containers.
Red containers- sharps waste collection for e.g., needles, blades, razors.
Red containers with a biohazard symbol-infectious waste collection like blood, contaminated equipment, IV tubing, etc. 
Yellow containers- serve the purpose of tracing chemotherapy wastes like empty vials, gloves, gowns, etc.
Black containers: Hazardous wastes collection like hazardous meds, P-listed drugs, bulk chemo, etc. 
Blue containers- Pharmaceutical wastes collection like pills, antibiotics, syringes, etc. Yellow, shielded containers with a radioactive symbol- radioactive waste collection like lab research liquids, radiotherapeutic contaminations, etc.

b)    Transportation and Storage

In any case, BMWs must be stored in a secure facility that is off-limits to the public, and not adjacent to areas that might be used for food or drink consumption. Storage is essential until bulk disposal of BMWs. For transportation purposes, special vehicles equipped with state-of-the-art defensive tools are necessary.

c)    Treatment and Disposal

Incineration is a good way of dealing with highly hazardous BMWs for reducing organic and combustible waste to inorganic incombustible matter. Incineration involves a high temperature, dry oxidation process thereby significantly reducing waste volume and weight. Disinfection is necessary before finally disposing off the biomedical waste. Deep burials can be helpful for anatomical wastes. Syringes must be cut and chemically disinfected with 1% bleaching powder solution at the source of the generation before finally disposing into sharps pit. Infected plastics must be chemically disinfected or autoclaved, shredded, recycled, and disposed into municipal dumps.
 

How to Apply for Bio-medical Waste Management Authorization

Authorization
"Authorization" refers to permission granted for generating, collecting, receiving, storing, transporting, treating, processing, disposing any form of biomedical waste, by the prescribed authority as per the guidelines provided by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

Who requires BMWM Authorization?

Section 10 of the Bio-medical Waste Management Rules, 2016, mandates every occupier/operator to hold an authorization, irrespective of the quantity, if they are dealing with bio-medical waste. Moreover, the occupiers and operators must obtain the Consent to Establish (CTE) & Consent to Operate (CTO) from the respective State Pollution Control Board. The consent needs to be obtained before their establishment or undertaking any expansion/ change in activity or infrastructure, and finally at the time of change in name or ownership.
According to Section 3(m), occupier means any person having administrative control over the institution and the premises generating bio-medical waste, and includes a hospital, nursing home, clinic, dispensary, veterinary institution, animal house, pathological laboratory, blood bank, health care facility and clinical establishment, irrespective of their system of medicine and by whatever name they are called.
According to Section 3(n), operator of a common bio-medical waste treatment facility means anybody owning or controlling a Common Bio-medical Waste Treatment Facility (CBMWTF) for the collection, reception, storage, transport, treatment, disposal, or any other form of handling of bio-medical waste.

Documents necessary for authorization for Health Care Units/Combined Bio-Medical Waste Treatment Facility

a)    An application form, in the prescribed format.
b)    Applicant’s particulars
c)    Duly attested undertaking in a prescribed format
d)    Mentioning of the activity for which authorization is required.
e)    Whether such application is a fresh or for renewal.
f)    Address of the operator or the occupier related to the biomedical waste management.
g)    GPS coordinates of operator or occupier
h)    Details of such operator or occupier like date, month, and year of establishment, number of beds, capacity of the installed treatment and disposal plant, the quantity of the bio-medical waste handled, treated or disposed off, description of arrangements for handling biomedical wastes, etc.